How Can Life of Value Best Flourish in
the Real World?
Nicholas Maxwell
1. The Urgent Need for an Intellectual Revolution
2. Two Fundamental Problems
3. Autobiographical Remarks
4. What Kind of Inquiry Can Best Help Life of Value to Flourish?
5. How is Life of Value Possible in the Physical Universe?
6. Connections between the Two Problems
1. The Urgent Need for an Intellectual Revolution
For much of my working life (from 1972 onwards) I have argued, in and
out of print, that we need to bring about a revolution in the aims and
methods of science – and of academic inquiry more generally. Instead of
giving priority to the search for knowledge, academia needs to devote itself
to seeking and promoting wisdom by rational means, wisdom being the
capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, wisdom
thus including knowledge, understanding and technological know-how, but
much else besides. A basic task ought to be to help humanity learn how to
create a better world.
Acquiring scientific knowledge dissociated from a more basic concern
for wisdom, as we do at present, is dangerously and damagingly irrational.
Natural science has been extraordinarily successful in increasing
knowledge. This has been of great benefit to humanity. But new
knowledge and technological know-how increase our power to act which,
without wisdom, may cause human suffering and death as well as human
benefit. All our modern global problems have arisen in this way: global
warming, the lethal character of modern war and terrorism, threats posed
by modern armaments (conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear),
vast inequalities of wealth and power round the globe, rapid increase in
population, destruction of tropical rain forests and other natural habitats,
rapid extinction of species, even the AIDS epidemic (AIDS being spread
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Nicholas Maxwell
by modern travel). All these distinctively modern crises have been made
possible by modern science dissociated from the rational pursuit of
wisdom. If we are to avoid in this century the horrors of the last one –
wars, death camps, dictatorships, poverty, environmental damage – we
urgently need to learn how to acquire more wisdom, which in turn means
that our institutions of learning become effectively, rationally, devoted to
that end.
The revolution we need would change every branch and aspect of
academic inquiry. A basic intellectual task of academic inquiry would be to
articulate our problems of living (personal, social and global) and propose
and critically assess possible solutions, possible actions, policies, political
programmes, philosophies of life. This would be the task of social inquiry
and the humanities. Tackling problems of knowledge would be secondary.
Social inquiry would be at the heart of the academic enterprise,
intellectually more fundamental than natural science. On a rather more
long-term basis, social inquiry would be concerned to help humanity build
cooperatively rational methods of problem-solving into the fabric of social
and political life, so that we may gradually acquire the capacity to resolve
our conflicts and problems of living in more cooperatively rational ways
than at present. Natural science would change to include three domains of
discussion: evidence, theory, and aims – the latter including discussion of
metaphysics, values and politics. Pursued for its own sake, science would
be more like natural philosophy, intermingling science, metaphysics and
philosophy as in the time of Newton. Academic inquiry as a whole would
become a kind of people's civil service, doing openly for the public what
actual civil services are supposed to do in secret for governments.
Academia would actively seek to educate the public by means of
discussion and debate, and would not just study the public. Above all
academia, internationally, would be devoted to helping humanity learn
what we need to do in response to the impending crisis of global warming.
The intellectual/institutional revolution, from knowledge to wisdom, that I
have been arguing for, has dramatic consequences both for the internal
structure and organization of academia, and for its relationship with the
rest of the social world.
These changes are not arbitrary. They all come from demanding that
academia cure its current structural irrationality, so that reason – the
authentic article – may be devoted to promoting human welfare.
The upshot is a new kind of inquiry – wisdom-inquiry – of which natural
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science forms an integral part. Wisdom-inquiry puts into the hands of
humanity, for the first time, an instrument of learning rationally designed
to help us realize what is of most value to us as we live – rationally
designed to help us make progress towards a good world.
Wisdom-inquiry is the solution to the profoundly important,
fundamental, but much neglected philosophical problem: What kind of
inquiry can best help humanity learn how to make progress towards a
civilized world?
2. Two Fundamental Problems
Even though this is where the main effort of my working life lies, it does
not sum up everything I have sought to do. Many years ago I came to the
conclusion that all my work, and much of my teaching, have been
concerned, in one way or another, with two fundamental, inter-related
problems.
Problem 1: How can we understand our human world, embedded as it is
within the physical universe, in such a way that justice is done both to the
richness, meaning and value of human life on the one hand, and to what
modern science tells us about the physical universe on the other hand?
Problem 2: What ought to be the overall aims and methods of science, and
of academic inquiry more generally, granted that the basic task is to help
humanity achieve what is of value – a wiser, more civilized world – by
cooperatively rational means (it being assumed that knowledge and
understanding can be of value in themselves and form a part of civilized
life)?
Both problems have played a central role in the history of thought. The
first problem begins with Democritus; aspects of the problem can be found
in the writings of Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, Newton; it is central to the work
of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant and, in more recent times, has
been of concern to such diverse thinkers as Whitehead, Russell, Stebbing,
Popper, Dennett, Nagel and Searle. The second problem (appropriately
interpreted) occupies a central place in the thought of Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle; it is basic to the work of Francis Bacon, Descartes, Locke; it has
a fundamental role to play in Enlightenment thought of the 18th century;
and that aspect of the problem that has to do with the pursuit of knowledge
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Nicholas Maxwell
has continued to play a central role in philosophy and philosophy of
science down to the present.
The first problem includes the mind/body problem, the problem of free
will and determinism, and the problem of the relationship between facts
and values; it includes problems concerning the relationship between
perceptual and physical properties, and problems concerning the
relationship between different branches of the sciences, from physics via
biology to psychology. It involves problems concerning the interpretation
of the neurosciences, Darwinian theory, and modern physical theory,
especially quantum theory; and it involves questions concerning scientific
realism, scientific essentialism and instrumentalism. Work that I have
done on this problem includes: my MA thesis,1 my first three papers
(published in 1966 and 1968),2 a series of papers on quantum theory,3 parts
1
N. Maxwell, Physics and Common Sense: A Critique of Physicalism (MA thesis,
Joule Library, Manchester University, 1965).
2
N. Maxwell, “Physics and Common Sense”, British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science 16 (1966), pp. 295-311; “Can there be Necessary Connections between
Successive Events?”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 19 (1968), pp. 1-25
(reprinted in R. Swinburne, (ed.) The Justification of Induction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1974), pp. 149-174; “Understanding Sensations”, Australasian
Journal of Philosophy 46 (1968), pp. 127-146.
3
In the first of these papers, published in 1972, I argued that orthodox quantum theory
is seriously defective: as a result of being about measurement, the theory consists of
two incompatible components, a quantum mechanical component, and a component
describing measurement consisting of some part of classical physics. In order to cure
this defect, I argued, all reference to measurement and “observables” needs to be
removed from the postulates of the theory, precise quantum mechanical conditions
being specified for probabilistic events to occur: see N. Maxwell, “A New Look at the
Quantum Mechanical Problem of Measurement”, American Journal of Physics 40,
(1972), pp. 1431-1435. I was immediately ticked off by two American physicists for
failing to understand quantum theory: see W. Band and J.L. Park, “Comments
concerning “A New Look at the Quantum Mechanical Problem of Measurement”,
American Journal of Physics 41 (1973), pp. 1021-1022. Actually, it was Band and
Park who got things wrong, as I pointed out at the time: see N. Maxwell, “The Problem
of Measurement – Real of Imaginary?”, American Journal of Physics 41 (1973), pp.
1022-1025. I might add that John Bell subsequently put forward a somewhat similar
criticism of orthodox quantum theory from 1973 onwards: see J. Bell, Speakable and
unspeakable in quantum mechanics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
In my paper I hoped to get across to physicists the idea that, in order to cure quantum
theory of its defects, what was needed was not philosophical interpretation, but
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of What's Wrong With Science?,4 "Methodological Problems of
Neuroscience",5 chapter 10 of From Knowledge to Wisdom,6 and part 2 of
"Induction and Scientific Realism".7 Especially significant are: "Physics
and Common Sense" (1966), chapter 10 of From Knowledge to Wisdom
(1984), and "The Mind-Body Problem and Explanatory Dualism" (2000).8
The various strands of this long-standing research were brought together
in my book The Human World in the Physical Universe: Consciousness,
Free Will and Evolution (2001).9
straightforward physics: testable conjectures concerning the occurrence of probabilistic
transitions, to be put to the test of experiment. As there was no sign of any physicist
taking any interest in the idea, I struggled to develop my proposal further: see for
example my “Towards a Micro Realistic Version of Quantum Mechanics”,
Foundations of Physics 6 (1976), pp. 275-92 and 661-76. Eventually I came up with a
fully micro-realistic, fundamentally probabilistic version of quantum theory, free of the
defects of, and testably distinct from, orthodox quantum theory: see my “Instead of
Particles and Fields: A Micro Realistic Quantum "Smearon" Theory”, Foundations of
Physics 12 (1982), pp. 607-31. This was further clarified in N. Maxwell, “Quantum
Propensiton Theory: A Testable Resolution of the Wave/Particle Dilemma”, British
Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (1988), pp. 1-50; and received a precise
formulation in N. Maxwell, “Particle Creation as the Quantum Condition for
Probabilistic Events to Occur”, Physics Letters A 187 (1994), pp. 351-355. (I was
prompted to develop a precise version of the theory by Euan Squires’s criticism of my
1988 paper: see E. J. Squires, “A Comment on Maxwell's Resolution of the
Wave/Particle Dilemma”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40 (1989), pp.
413-417. For my latest exposition of my fundamentally probabilistic, micro-realistic
version of quantum theory see: N. Maxwell, “Is the Quantum World Composed of
Propensitons?”, in M. Suárez (ed.), Probabilities, Causes and Propensities in Physics,
(Boston: Synthese Library, 2009).
4
N. Maxwell, What’s Wrong With Science?: Towards a People’s Rational Science of
Delight and Compassion (Hayes, UK: Bran’s Head Books, 1976).
5
N. Maxwell, “Methodological Problems of Neuroscience”, in D. Rose and V. G.
Dobson (eds.), Models of the Visual Cortex (Chichester: John Wiley, 1985), pp. 11-21.
6
N. Maxwell, From Knowledge to Wisdom (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984; 2nd ed.,
revised throughout, new introduction and three new chapters, London: Pentire Press,
2007).
7
N. Maxwell, “Induction and Scientific Realism: Einstein versus van Fraassen”,
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (1993), pp. 61-79, 81-101 and 275305.
8
N. Maxwell, “The Mind-Body Problem and Explanatory Dualism”, Philosophy 75
(2000), pp. 49-71.
9
N. Maxwell, The Human World in the Physical Universe: Consciousness, Free Will
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Nicholas Maxwell
The second problem includes standard epistemological and
methodological problems about scientific progress, the rationality of
science, the aims and methods of natural and social science. But it goes
beyond these standard issues in embracing the whole of academic inquiry –
the humanities, technological research and education in addition to natural
and social science – and in raising the question of how inquiry, in this
broad sense, can best help people realize what is genuinely of value in life.
It is very definitely not assumed that the proper intellectual aim of inquiry
is knowledge. My published work on this problem began with “A Critique
of Popper’s Views on Scientific Method”,10 and “The Rationality of
Scientific Discovery”.11 The first full statement of the argument for the
need for a revolution, from knowledge to wisdom, is to be found in my
first book What’s Wrong With Science? (1976);12 it is restated, in a much
more detailed and careful way in From Knowledge to Wisdom,13 and it
receives a more up to date restatement in Is Science Neurotic?.14 A
detailed statement of the first part of the argument concerning natural
science is to be found in The Comprehensibility of the Universe.15 I have
also published numerous papers spelling out various aspects of the
argument over the years: four examples are: “Science, Reason, Knowledge
and Wisdom: A Critique of Specialism” (1980), “What Kind of Inquiry
Can Best Help Us Create a Good World?” (1992), “Can Humanity Learn
to become Civilized? The Crisis of Science without Civilization” (2000),
and “From Knowledge to Wisdom: The Need for an Academic
Revolution” (2007).16
and Evolution (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001).
10
N. Maxwell, “A Critique of Popper's Views on Scientific Method”, Philosophy of
Science 39 (1972), pp. 131-52; reprinted in A. O’Hear, (ed.), Popper: Critical
Assessments of Leading Philosophers, Vol. II, Part 3, (London: Routledge, 2004), pp.
463-87.
11
N. Maxwell, “The Rationality of Scientific Discovery”, Philosophy of Science 41
(1974), pp. 123-153 and 247-295.
12
N. Maxwell, What’s Wrong With Science?, op.cit.
13
N. Maxwell, From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit.
14
N. Maxwell, Is Science Neurotic? (London: Imperial College Press, 2004).
15
N. Maxwell, The Comprehensibility of the Universe: A New Conception of Science
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
16
N. Maxwell, “Science, Reason, Knowledge and Wisdom: A Critique of Specialism”,
Inquiry 23 (1980), pp. 19-81; “What Kind of Inquiry Can Best Help Us Create a Good
World?, Science, Technology and Human Values 17 (1992), pp. 205-227; “Can
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In what follows I shall call the first problem the “Human World/Physical
Universe Problem” (HWPhU problem), and the second the “wisdominquiry problem”.
These two problems are, of course, interconnected in many ways (a point
I shall return to below). The first concerns how it is possible for life of
value to exist in the physical universe. The second presumes that the first
has been solved and seeks to discover what kind of inquiry can best help
life of value to flourish in the physical universe. Taken together, they
ought, but are not, to be regarded as the fundamental problems of
philosophy, embracing as they do, not just epistemology, philosophy of
science and metaphysics, but also moral and political philosophy.
They may be regarded as two aspects of an even more fundamental
problem: How can life of value best flourish in the real world? This is
indeed, in my view, the proper basic problem, not just for philosophy, but
for all of science and scholarship. It is our fundamental problem in life,
practical, theoretical and conceptual, personal, social and global. Certainly
all my own work has been directed towards contributing towards
improving our solutions of this fundamental problem.
3. Autobiographical Remarks
How did I come to be preoccupied – or obsessed – with the above two
problems? It goes back to my childhood.
From a young age (and probably in common with most other young
children) I passionately wanted to understand. I can remember wondering,
as a four-year old, how space ends. I came to the conclusion that it must
end with an enormous wall. Then the awful thought occurred: What is
behind the wall? I had discovered a fundamental problem of cosmology.
At the same age I invented a theory as to why the sky is blue. It is blue
because air is very slightly blue. I told my father about my idea, and was
outraged when he seemed unconvinced. When I was six I discovered the
problem of perception. I knew that when we see, light enters our eyes.
This must mean, I suddenly realized, that this room I see must be inside my
Humanity Learn to become Civilized? The Crisis of Science without Civilization”,
Journal of Applied Philosophy 17 (2000), pp. 29-44; “From Knowledge to Wisdom:
The Need for an Academic Revolution”, London Review of Education, 5;2 (2007), pp.
97-115, reprinted in R. Barnett and N. Maxwell (eds.), Wisdom in the University
(London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 1-19.
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Nicholas Maxwell
head. But that is absurd: How can it possibly be inside my head? At about
the same time I discovered an argument for the existence of atoms. People,
animals, plants are all of a characteristic size. There must therefore, I felt
rather than thought, be something in the constitution of things which
makes it possible for these things to determine what size to be. Ultimately
matter must be made up of atoms, of a definite size, to make it possible for
familiar things to fix their size.
My parents, somewhat amused by my passion to understand, gave me a
book for children about science for my eighth birthday. I discovered that it
is theoretical physics which seeks to understand the ultimate nature of the
universe. My task in life was clear: I would become a theoretical physicist,
discover the secret of the universe (the secret of life as I then thought it to
be), and reveal it to everyone. At the age of ten I devoured Penguin
Science News 2,17 devoted to nuclear physics and the bomb. I was
fascinated and appalled. I was horrified that nuclear tests might create a
hydrogen bomb out of the heavy hydrogen in the oceans, exploding the
earth and everyone on it, including me. But what enthralled me was the
mystery, the utter strangeness, of the universe revealed by physics, solid
matter mostly empty space, velocity causing lengths to shrink and clocks to
go slow, space-time not flat but curved, particles no more than waves of
probability, the real world so utterly different from how we ordinarily
experience it to be. To live and die and never know what sort of universe
this really is struck me as the ultimate catastrophe, almost equivalent to not
living at all. Nothing, nothing must divert me from the task of discovering
the secret of the universe, the secret of life.
None of this, by the way, should be taken to mean that I was fiercely
precocious. Not at all. In those far off days in England, 11 year olds had
to take an exam which decided whether they could go on to grammar
school or not. Failure more or less condemned you to leaving school
without academic qualifications (unless your parents could pay for your
education). I failed this crucial exam, not once, but twice! My problem
was that, though not especially bright, I was insanely, pathologically
intellectually ambitious.
Then, with adolescence, I began to feel it was far more important to
understand people than the universe, the way to do that being via the novel.
Instead of reading Jeans, Eddington, and Fred Hoyle, I plunged into the
17
R.E. Peierls and J. Enogat (eds.) Science News 2 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1947).
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worlds of Dostoevsky, Kafka, Stendhal, Chekhov, D. H. Lawrence,
Virginia Woolf and Flaubert. My real education began. I would become a
novelist and dare to reveal dark secrets of the human heart no one before
had dared utter. I would depict worlds with such intense imaginative
power that they would seem more real than reality itself
But the educational system had stamped me science rather than
humanities.
Off I went to University College London to study
mathematics. Earlier, I had read Eddington, and he had persuaded me that
physics is really mathematics, the ultimate nature of the universe being
mathematical in character. I thought I would find mathematics easy, and I
would be able to devote myself to writing novels. But I was miserable, I
didn't know what to write about, and I never discovered how to fabricate in
order to tell the truth. And mathematics seemed both hollow and very
difficult. It did not seem to be about anything – apart, that is, from
analysis, which I found fascinating because it seemed to probe the
foundations. I passed all my exams but, abruptly, in my second year, my
grant was stopped because I had not attended enough lectures.
So I did my National Service, and became a Sergeant in the Educational
Corps. And then I went to Manchester University to do Philosophy. I had
failed miserably as a physicist, and as a novelist, but I was interested in
philosophical problems, so I would do that for three years, and then join
the grey shuffle of ordinary, uncreative life (as I then saw it).
I found I knew how to do philosophy. In our first week, Professor
Arthur Prior (logician and moral philosopher) set us, as an essay subject,
“Do we see stars?”. When Prior gave me my essay back, he told me that
he had set the subject for an open essay competition, and my essay
included all the points made in the essays of the competition, but no single
essay had managed to include all of mine. For my next essay, Prior asked
me to read a paper in the current issue of Mind on McTaggart on time. I
read it, decided the author was mistaken, and said so in my essay. “Yes, I
think you’re right” Prior said as he handed back my essay. I was pleased:
here I was, apparently, at the coal face of philosophical research, holding
my own with the philosophical professionals.
Another triumph – which I only saw as a triumph some years later –
came towards the end of my first year. I had to write an essay on the
mind/body problem for Arthur Prior’s seminar. I went for long walks in
Whitworth Park (near Manchester University) in an agony of thought, and
came to the conclusion that we do not ordinarily know enough about our
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Nicholas Maxwell
inner experiences to know that they are not brain processes. In perception
we see, not what is inside our heads, but what we ordinarily suppose we
see, the world around us. After I had read out my essay in the seminar,
Prior asked, rather sharply, what I had been reading. “Nothing”, I replied.
“I went for walks in Whitworth Park and thought about the problem”.
Prior, from New Zealand, and a friend of J. J. C. Smart, must have been
somewhat startled to discover that a first year undergraduate had
rediscovered for himself some of the key points made earlier in print by U.
T. Place18 (1956) and Smart.19
But by the end of the academic year I had made myself utterly miserable,
struggling hopelessly with the tangled brambles of impossible
philosophical problems, locked in a nightmare of contradictory intellectual
impulses. When the summer vacation came, I took a job in a factory, and
in the evenings began to keep a diary, noting down my thoughts and
feelings. The outcome was a series of psychic explosions which tore me
apart and changed the rest of my life.
I decided that my earlier desire to be a great theoretical physicist and
master the universe, and my desire to be a great novelist and master of
human life, were both, when pushed to the limit of absurdity,
manifestations of the desire to become God. Not only was this absurd; it
was undesirable. Far more desirable was to be something that, up to then,
had seemed too insignificant to deserve any consideration at all: myself.
This long-neglected, fragile, worthless scrap of almost nothing now
seemed to me to be, for me, the most precious thing in existence,
something holy and sacrosanct. But what was it? What was I? I had no
idea. Having ignored myself, in some sense, for so long, in my striving to
become acquainted with, identified with, some profoundly significant
otherness (ultimate physical reality, ultimate human reality), my self had
become a stranger to me. It felt like a young plant, fragile from neglect and
lack of nourishment, needing attention and care to grow and flourish.
When we are born, I wrote in the diary, we do not know how to
distinguish "me" from "not me": there is just things happening. But then
we do discover how to make the distinction, and we discover we are tiny
18
U.T. Place, “Is Consciousness a Brain Process?”, British Journal of Psychology, 46
(1956), pp. 44-50.
19
J.J.C. Smart, Philosophy and Scientific Realism (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1963).
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and vulnerable in a vast, strange, and sometimes terrifying world. We
falsely half remember the earlier state as a time when we were
"everything", and our life project, in one way or another, becomes to return
to this earlier, God-like state. One strategy is to try to convert the "not me"
into "me", by conquering it, knowing and understanding it, acquiring
power over it, or even literally trying to swallow it. Another standard
strategy is to do just the opposite: shrink the "me" until it disappears, and
there is only "everything". This is the strategy of the mystic who seeks
mystical union with God; it is the strategy of the humble, and of those who
commit suicide.
But both these conventional and absurd strategies rest on a mistaken
view about the nature of the "me", the nature of personal identity. Our
identity is not what is inside us. What lies within us is just as mysterious as
what lies without us. Our identity exists in the interplay between what lies
within and without. If the distinction between "me" and "not me" is
depicted as a circle on a surface, the "me" is not, as we ordinarily assume,
what lies within the circle; it is rather the line of the circle itself. We
should not, ludicrously, try to increase the circle until, in the limit,
everything is incorporated within it; nor should we, almost equally
ludicrously, try to decrease the circle until it becomes a dot and disappears
and there is just "everything": instead, we should "relax the muscles of
identity" (as I wrote in my diary) so that the line of the circle becomes
permeable, and there can be an easy interplay between what lies within and
without, and we become our authentic selves, without striving to expand
until, in the limit, we become everything, or shrink until we become
nothing (and there is only everything).
My earlier projects to know and understand the nature of the universe by
means of physics, and to know and understand humanity by means of
literature, now seemed variants of the strategy to expand and expand the
circle of identity. Pushed to the limits of absurdity, it was as if my ultimate
aspiration had been to become God. But an infinitely more worthwhile
goal lay before me, up till now neglected as worthless: to become myself.
"The riddle of the universe" I wrote "is the riddle of our desires". The
fundamental question of philosophy is not "How do I acquire knowledge?"
but rather "What do I want? How should I live?".
These ideas, which now seem to me somewhat absurd, exaggerated and
dubious at best, were for me, at the time, the stuff of my life; they were
experienced and lived. Before these "revelations", I had half believed in
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Nicholas Maxwell
Descartes' picture of the self being the mind, linked to the brain but utterly
different from anything physical, the whole experienced world being
locked away within the prison of one's skull. This picture was shattered.
What was within was just as much a mystery as what lay without: "I" was
the region of interplay between these two mysteries. I became whatever I
saw or experienced, my self being created and dying many times during the
day. In one of his letters, John Keats spoke of becoming the bird he saw
pecking on a path. That was how it now was with me. I would be whatever
I experienced: seeing a blade of grass, I became that blade of grass; talking
with a friend, I became that "talking with the friend". For six weeks it was
as if I was high on some hallucinatory drug: visions of exhilarating and
terrifying intensity came before breakfast, and throughout the day. I had
become a prophet, and my prophecy was: be your own prophet, discover
for yourself your own true self, what you really desire in life.
In the end I found having a great message for the world such a
contradiction that I finally hit upon the idea: there are only stories or
myths. One is that of science; another is that of personal experience. Not
till I read Karl Popper did I free myself of this nonsense – still so
fashionable in some quarters.
I vowed that when I got back to Manchester University in the autumn, I
would tell the Philosophy Department about my earth-shaking discoveries
of the summer – especially, that philosophy should be about how to live,
and not about how to acquire knowledge. I found I could not even open my
mouth. Ecstasy gave way to persistent black despair.
I knew I had discovered something of profound importance. But what
exactly? In my misery, I felt my miraculous discovery had been mislaid. I
laboured to rediscover what I had lost. And very slowly, over a period of
some ten to twenty years, I did rediscover and further develop my initial,
slightly mad ideas. For those six weeks of ecstasy and terror are the key to
all my subsequent work. What I have done since is to recoup, develop,
elaborate and apply the stark, crude ideas I lived with such intensity that
summer.
Looking back now, I would say that the key discovery was that "the
riddle of the universe is the riddle of our desires" – or, in other words, that
our aims, in science and in life, are profoundly problematic. Tied in with
this was the idea that philosophy should be about how to live, not about
how to acquire knowledge – and certainly not about solving conceptual
problems. I generalized this, later, to become the idea that all of inquiry,
Life of Value
13
and not just philosophy, should be about how to live – our fundamental
problems being problems of living rather than problems of knowledge.
Tied in with all this, too, was the discovery that the world as we experience
it is as objectively real as the world revealed by theoretical physics.
Physics and literature, the two passions of my youth, each hitherto
making nonsense of the other, suddenly achieved a kind of problematic
synthesis in the idea that our human world and the physical universe coexist with equal reality. My struggles with physics and literature, instead of
being just abject failures, became something like apprentice work for the
task in hand: to bring my discovery, whatever it might be, out into the clear
light of day. The roots of the human world/physical universe problem lay,
for me, deep in my childhood, deep in my being.
After obtaining my degree in 1963, I decided I would devote two years
to trying to capture what I had discovered, in the summer of 1961, in an
MA thesis. My initial idea was to argue that there are only different
stories, different myths, it being vital not to take any one story, such as that
of science or common sense, too seriously. My tutor, Ted Dawson,
persuaded me to restrict my attention to just two "stories", or cosmological
views, that of physics and common sense.
I discovered Karl Popper, and was immensely impressed. One passage
in particular made an impact:
The belief of a liberal – the belief in the possibility of a rule of law, of
equal justice, of fundamental rights, and a free society – can easily
survive the recognition that judges are not omniscient and may make
mistakes about facts and that, in practice, absolute justice is hardly ever
realized in any particular case. But this belief in the possibility of a rule
of law, of justice, and of freedom, can hardly survive the acceptance of
an epistemology which teaches that there are no objective facts; not
merely in this particular case, but in any other case: and that the judge
cannot have made a factual mistake because he can no more be wrong
about the facts than he can be right.20
I found this moral argument for factual realism convincing. It made
clear that to abandon the notion of factual truth is shameful, and potentially
20
K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1963), p. 5.
14
Nicholas Maxwell
disastrous. I converted my initial idea that physics and common sense are
rival, equally valid stories about the nature of reality into the very different
idea that they specify different aspects of reality. My task then became to
pin down precisely what aspects, and how they are inter-related.
I discovered J.J.C. Smart's Philosophy and Scientific Realism, which
impressed me with its clarity, simplicity and comprehensiveness – and its
freedom from any hint of awful Oxford conceptual analysis. My thesis
became a criticism of Smart's radical version of physicalism ("everything
is made up exclusively of fundamental physical entities"). I expounded
and defended a view that I have called experiential physicalism (it might
be called naive realist physicalism). Physics seeks to specify only that
aspect of the world which determines (perhaps probabilistically) how
events unfold in time. Colours, sounds, smells, as experienced by us, exist
objectively in the world, in addition to, and not reducible to, physical
properties. Our inner experiences are brain processes. These have
experiential features not reducible, even in principle, to physics.
Understanding a person as a person is distinct from, and cannot be reduced
to, scientific understanding.
The overall argument of the thesis was summarized in my first published
paper “Physics and Common Sense” (1966).21 Two further papers spelled
out more detailed points of my thesis: “Can there be Necessary
Connections Between Successive Events?”, (which specifies precisely
what aspect of the world it is that physics seeks to describe, and refutes
Hume on causation), and “Understanding Sensations”,22 (which spells out
the "two aspect" version of the brain process theory I defend).
With the completion of my MA thesis (in 1965), and the publication of
these three papers, I had completed the kernel of my solution to the
problem of how it is possible for the world as we experience it to exist
embedded in the physical universe, although I continued to develop further
aspects of this proposed solution over the years. I expected these three
papers, when published, to provoke a philosophical uproar. That they were
passed over in almost complete silence left me bitterly disappointed. I
came to the conclusion that publishing papers had nothing to do with
communicating ideas or results, and had everything to do with promoting
21
N. Maxwell, “Physics and Common Sense”, op. cit.
N. Maxwell, “Can there be Necessary Connections Between Successive Events?”,
op. cit.; and “Understanding Sensations”, op. cit.
22
Life of Value
15
academic careers. For a time, I stopped publishing altogether. (Some of
the content of these papers did, however, receive considerable attention as
a result of subsequent publications by, among others, Thomas Nagel, Frank
Jackson, Fred Dretske, M. Tooley, and David Armstrong.23 However,
these subsequent publications missed the most important points that I was
concerned to make. Nagel and Jackson failed to appreciate that, once it is
established that physics cannot predict experiential qualities as we
experience them, the silence of physics about colours and other
experiential qualities provides no grounds whatsoever for holding they do
not exist objectively, in the world around us – in one sense of “objective”
at least – a point I shall return to below. Dretske, Tooley, and Armstrong,
in giving their essentialistic, anti-Humean accounts of laws, failed to
explain how laws can be both necessary and empirical, which is just what
my account of 1968 succeeded in doing. As I explained in my 1968 paper
refuting Hume, the empirical content of an essentialistically interpreted
theory lies in its existential claims; the laws are all necessary analytically,
and hence not empirical.)
A year or two later, I made what I can only regard as the most important
discovery of my life. Having solved the problem of how it is possible for
life of value to exist in the physical universe, I was abruptly confronted
with the discovery that academic inquiry must be radically transformed if
it is to be rationally designed to help life of value to flourish in the physical
universe.
In the next section I give an account of this discovery. In the section
after, I summarize the details of my proposed solution to the first problem
– the problem of how life of value is possible in the physical universe. I
conclude with some remarks about interconnections between the two
contributions.
4. What Kind of Inquiry Can Best Help Life of Value to Flourish?
A year or two after the publication of my first three papers – around 1970 –
23
T. Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”, The Philosophical Review 83 (1974), pp. 435450: F. Jackson, “What Mary Didn’t Know”, Journal of Philosophy 3 (1986), pp. 29195; F. Dretske, “Laws of Nature”, Philosophy of Science 44 (1977), pp. 248-68; M.
Tooley, “The Nature of Law”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 7 (1977), pp. 667-698; and
D. Armstrong, A Theory of Universals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978),
and What is a Law of Nature? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
16
Nicholas Maxwell
I began to wonder whether Popper really had solved the problems of
induction and demarcation or, more fundamentally, the problem of
exhibiting science as a rational endeavour. I came to the conclusion he had
not. Popper, like almost all scientists and philosophers of science, took it
for granted that the basic intellectual aim of science is to acquire
knowledge of factual truth, nothing being persistently presupposed about
the truth independently of evidence. But this seriously misrepresents the
real aim of science. Physics persistently only accepts unified theories even
though endlessly many even more empirically successful disunified rivals
can always easily be concocted. This means physics makes a persistent
metaphysical assumption: the universe is such that no disunified theory is
true. Or, in other words: the universe is more or less physically
comprehensible (only unified theories being explanatory, or depicting a
physically comprehensible range of phenomena). The aim of physics is
not truth per se, but rather truth presupposed to be physically
comprehensible.
Popper had, in short, failed quite fundamentally to solve the problem of
the rationality of science. He had failed to acknowledge the real,
profoundly problematic aim of science. A new conception of science, and
a new kind of science, were required which acknowledge with greater
honesty the real, highly problematic aim of science of seeking explanatory
truth, and which seek to improve this problematic aim as an integral part of
scientific research.
In order to facilitate this, the metaphysical
presuppositions of science, concerning the comprehensibility and
knowability of the universe, need to be represented as a hierarchy of
assumptions (and associated methods), the assumptions asserting less, and
thus being more likely to be true, as one ascends the hierarchy. In this
way, a framework of relatively unproblematic assumptions and associated
methods (aims and methods), high up in the hierarchy, is created within
which much more substantial and problematic assumptions and methods
can be critically assessed and improved. This new conception of science,
emerging from my criticism of Popper, which I called aim-oriented
empiricism, I first spelled out 1974 in a two-part paper provocatively
called “The Rationality of Scientific Discovery”.24
Then, walking home one evening from work, it occurred to me (and I
24
N. Maxwell, “The Rationality of Scientific Discovery”, Philosophy of Science, 41
(1974), pp. 123-153 and 247-295.
Life of Value
17
can remember the precise spot near Grays Inn Rd. where this thought
occurred) that, taking aim-oriented empiricism as my starting point, I could
tread a path parallel to that taken by Popper. Beginning with his view of
science of falsificationism, Popper had generalized this to form a new
conception of rationality, critical rationalism, which he had then used to
make profound contributions to political philosophy and philosophy more
generally, to ideas about the social sciences, to education, to a wide range
of issues concerning civilization, culture, the open society. I had no doubt
whatsoever of the immense importance of this line of argument of Popper,
from falsificationism to critical rationalism and all the riches of his The
Poverty of Historicism, Conjectures and Refutations, and above all The
Open Society and Its Enemies.25
But now I had a far better starting point than Popper's. Instead of his
seriously defective falsificationism, I could begin with my superior aimoriented empiricism. I could then tread a path parallel to Popper's,
generalizing aim-oriented empiricism to become a new conception of
rationality, aim-oriented rationality, which stresses that whenever aims are
problematic, as they so often are in life and politics (and not just in
science), we need to represent our aims in the form of a hierarchy so that
we may improve our aims, and associated methods, as we act, as we live.
And I had rediscovered my insight of the summer of 1961 – "our aims are
profoundly problematic" – but in a far more powerful and general form. I
now had available a heuristic scaffolding guiding the construction of my
thesis and argument. All I had to do was tread a parallel path to Popper's,
but because of my much improved starting point, my path would lead to
much improved results.
I spelled it all out in a manuscript entitled The Aims of Science. A
succession of editors at Macmillans got excited about the work, but after
some four years, a new editor rejected it. Then a friend introduced me to
an amateur publisher. Because of the deadline he set me, I wrote my first
book, What's Wrong With Science?, published in 1976, in just three weeks.
Most of it takes the form of a debate between a Philosopher and a
Scientist. The Philosopher argues passionately that science misrepresents
its profoundly problematic aims, and thus betrays both reason and
25
K.R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1961); Conjectures and Refutations, op. cit.; The Open Society and its Enemies
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969; first published 1945).
18
Nicholas Maxwell
humanity. Science needs to acknowledge problematic assumptions
concerning metaphysics, values and politics inherent in the aims of
science, so that these assumptions can be critically assessed and improved.
The upshot is a new kind of science, and a new kind of academic inquiry
more generally, which does better justice to both the intellectual and the
practical aspects of inquiry.
But my "from knowledge to wisdom" argument only received its full,
detailed statement eight years later with the publication of From
Knowledge to Wisdom in the Orwellian year of 1984. In this book I
distinguish two kinds of inquiry which I shall call here knowledge-inquiry
and wisdom-inquiry.26 Both hold that a basic social or humanitarian aim of
inquiry is to help promote human welfare, enhance the quality of human
life, whether by intellectual or practical means.
Knowledge-inquiry, however, holds that the proper way for science, and
for inquiry more generally, to pursue this social aim is, in the first,
instance, to pursue the quite distinct intellectual aim of acquiring
knowledge. First, knowledge is to be acquired; once acquired, it can be
applied to helping solve social problems. Knowledge-inquiry restricts
what can enter the intellectual domain of inquiry, in lectures and
publications: a contribution must be a potential contribution to knowledge,
or must contribute to the assessment of such contributions. Problems of
knowledge can be discussed, but not problems of living. Proposals for
action, political programmes, religious ideas, values, expressions of
feelings and desires are all excluded from the intellectual domain of
inquiry. This is done so that genuine, objective knowledge of fact may be
acquired, and inquiry may be of genuine value to humanity. At the core of
knowledge-inquiry there is a conception of science: standard empiricism.
This is even more restrictive: in order to get into science, a potential
contribution to knowledge must be empirically testable. The basic
intellectual aim of science is taken to be knowledge of factual truth
(nothing being presupposed about the truth), the basic method being to
assess theories exclusively with respect to evidence (and perhaps
simplicity or unity), nothing being permanently assumed about the
universe independently of evidence. According to standard empiricism and
knowledge-inquiry, disciplines are partially ordered in terms of how
26
These conceptions and kinds of inquiry are called “the philosophy of knowledge”
and “the philosophy of wisdom” in my From Knowledge to Wisdom, op cit.
Life of Value
19
fundamental they are. At the most fundamental level, there is logic and
mathematics; then theoretical physics, phenomenological physics and
applications of physics such as astrophysics; chemistry, biology,
ethnology; and then psychology and the other social sciences, with
humanities such as philosophy and cultural studies as the least fundamental
of all.27
Knowledge-inquiry, I argue, exercises a profound influence over almost
every aspect of academic work, and is overwhelmingly the dominant
conception of inquiry. Knowledge-inquiry is still almost universally
accepted as the only rationalist conception of inquiry, nearly one quarter of
a century after the publication of From Knowledge to Wisdom in 1984.
Some academics, working in such fields as cultural studies, history of
science and so-called Continental philosophy, reject both knowledgeinquiry and the whole idea of rational inquiry, influenced by doctrines such
as Romanticism, the Counter-Enlightenment (as Isaiah Berlin has called
it), postmodernism and social constructivism. But this is very much a
dissident, minority view: almost all current academic work proceeds
officially in accordance with the edicts of knowledge-inquiry.28
Despite this, knowledge-inquiry is damagingly irrational, especially
when judged from the standpoint of being a kind of inquiry designed to
help enhance the quality of human life.29 The successful scientific pursuit
of knowledge and technological know-how dissociated from the more
fundamental pursuit of wisdom is, I argue, behind all our current global
crises, from global warming, the menace of modern armaments, the lethal
character of modern warfare, to the destruction of tropical rainforests,
rapid extinction of species, and pollution of earth, sea and air. For the sake
of the future of humanity, and for the sake of inquiry itself, we urgently
need to correct the damaging irrationality of knowledge-inquiry, thus
creating a new kind of inquiry rationally designed to help humanity learn
how to create a better world. This new kind of inquiry is what I call
“wisdom-inquiry”.
What do I mean by “rationality”? No more than what is required. The
term “rationality”, as used here, appeals to the idea that there is some, no
doubt rather ill-defined, set of meta-methods, strategies or rules which, if
27
See my From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., ch. 2.
See Ibid., ch. 6. See ch. 6 of the 2nd edition for a more up-to-date account.
29
Ibid., ch. 3.
28
20
Nicholas Maxwell
implemented, give us our best chances of solving our problems, realizing
our aims. These meta-methods of reason assume there is much that we can
already do, and help us marshal these actions, these already-solved
problems, so as to give us the best chance of solving new problems.
Rational methods do not dictate what we should do, and do not guarantee
success.30
There are two arguments designed to establish the profound structural
irrationality of knowledge-inquiry, the second deepening the first. The
first appeals to methods of rational problem-solving,31 the second –
presupposing and building on the first – to methods of rational aim
pursuing when aims are problematic.32
Four elementary rules of rational problem-solving are:
(1) Articulate and seek to improve the articulation of the basic problem(s)
to be solved.
(2) Propose and critically assess alternative possible solutions.
(3) When necessary, break up the basic problem to be solved into a number
of specialized problems – preliminary, simpler, analogous, subordinate
problems – (to be tackled in accordance with rules (1) and (2)), in an
attempt to work gradually toward a solution to the basic problem to be
solved.
(4) Inter-connect attempts to solve the basic problem and specialized
problems, so that basic problem solving may guide, and be guided by,
specialized problem solving.
Rules (1) and (2) may be regarded as encapsulating Popper’s critical
rationalism, arrived at by generalizing his falsificationist philosophy of
science. Popper was too vehemently opposed to specialization to consider
rules (3) and (4), which recognize the value of specialization and
effectively deal with its dangers.
Knowledge-inquiry, we shall see, violates three of these four elementary
rules of reason.
Two preliminary points. First, granted that academic inquiry has, as its
fundamental aim, to help promote human welfare by intellectual and
educational means, then the problems that inquiry fundamentally ought to
try to help solve are problems of living, problems of action. From the
See Ibid., 1st ed., pp. 67-71; 2nd ed., pp. 79-84.
31
Ibid., ch. 4.
32
Ibid., ch. 5.
30
Life of Value
21
standpoint of achieving what is of value in life, it is what we do, or refrain
from doing, that ultimately matters. Even where new knowledge and
technological know-how are relevant to the achievement of what is of
value – as it is in medicine or agriculture, for example – it is always what
this new knowledge or technological know-how enables us to do that
matters. Second, in order to achieve what is of value in life more
successfully than we do at present, we need to discover how to resolve
conflicts and problems of living in more cooperatively rational ways than
we do at present. There is a spectrum of ways in which conflicts can be
resolved, from murder or all out war at the violent end of the spectrum, via
enslavement, threat of murder or war, threats of a less extreme kind,
manipulation, bargaining, voting, to cooperative rationality at the other end
of the spectrum, those involved seeking, by rational means, to arrive at that
course of action which does the best justice to the interests of all those
involved. A basic task for a kind of academic inquiry that seeks to help
promote human welfare must be to discover how conflict resolution can be
moved away from the violent end of the spectrum towards the
cooperatively rational end.
If inquiry put the above four rules of rational problem-solving into
practice, in seeking to help promote human welfare, then it would, as a
matter of absolute intellectual priority:
(1*) Articulate and seek to improve the articulation of those personal,
social and global problems of living we need to solve to achieve what is of
value in life (a better world).
(2*) Propose and critically assess alternative possible solutions – possible
and actual cooperative actions (policies, political programmes,
philosophies of life), to be assessed from the standpoint of their capacity, if
implemented, to help realize what is of value in life.
Knowledge-inquiry encourages rational exploration of problems of
knowledge but bans exploration of problems of living from the intellectual
domain of inquiry. (Factual claims to knowledge enter the intellectual
domain, but not expressions of human feelings, desires, aspirations and
values, not proposals for action.) Knowledge-inquiry thus violates the two
most fundamental rules of rational problem-solving conceivable (granted
inquiry has the aim of helping to promote human welfare by intellectual
means). (1*) and (2*) do get put into practice on the fringes of academia,
as it exists at present, in departments devoted to such matters as peace,
policy, the environment, politics and economics. But they are not
22
Nicholas Maxwell
intellectually fundamental, at the core of the whole academic enterprise.
Knowledge-inquiry succeeds in implementing rule (3) to splendid effect
– hence the vast tree-like structure of specialized disciplines and
specialized problem-solving of academia today. But, having failed to
implement (1) and (2), knowledge-inquiry cannot implement (4) either.
Knowledge-inquiry is so seriously irrational it violates three of the four
most elementary rules of reason in a wholesale, structural manner.
This structural irrationality is no mere formal matter. It has had, and
continues to have, profoundly damaging consequences. The successful
pursuit of scientific knowledge and technological know-how dissociated
from a more fundamental concern with problems of living, dissociated
from implementation of (1*) and (2*) in other words, as required by
knowledge-inquiry, has had all sorts of beneficial consequences, but has
also made possible all our current global problems, such as those indicated
above. Modern science and technology make possible modern armaments
and the lethal character of modern warfare; they make possible modern
agriculture and industry, modern medicine and hygiene, and rapid
population growth, which in turn are responsible for global warming, the
destruction of natural habitats and extinction of species, and the pollution
of the environment. All this is to be expected. Science and technology
enhance our power to act, but not our power to act wisely. If academia
implemented (1*) and (2*) at a fundamental level, this would not of course
guarantee that humanity would learn to resolve its problems in wiser,
more cooperatively rational ways, but academia would at least be rationally
designed to help humanity learn this vital lesson. Knowledge-inquiry,
bereft of (1*) and (2*), is a recipe for disaster.
Failure to implement (4) has adverse consequences as well. It means
that the aims, the priorities of scientific and technological research cannot
be related to and influenced by sustained discussion of what our most
important problems of living are, and what we need to do about them. As
a result, the priorities of specialized research are likely to be influenced,
not by human need, but by commercial and military pressures, and the
needs of narrow specialized research interests themselves. Modern science
exhibits just such tendencies.
Wisdom-inquiry (first version) emerges when knowledge-inquiry is
modified just sufficiently to implement all four rules of rational problemsolving, (1) to (4). Some of the consequences of this are as follows. The
intellectually central and fundamental task of wisdom-inquiry is to
Life of Value
23
Diagram 1: Wisdom-Inquiry Implementing Problem-Solving
Rationality
articulate, and improve the articulation of, those personal, social and global
problems of living that need to be solved if people are to realize what is of
value in life, and to propose and critically assess possible and actual
actions (policies, political programmes, philosophies of life) for their
capacity to help realize what is of value. This task is undertaken by social
inquiry and the humanities, intellectually more fundamental than natural
science. Emerging out of, and feeding back into, this intellectually
fundamental activity, the natural, and technological sciences tackle
secondary problems of knowledge, understanding and know-how, in
accordance with rules (3) and (4). Social inquiry and humanities also, of
course, seek to acquire relevant knowledge and understanding of the
human world, as a secondary concern, in accordance with rules (3) and (4).
24
Nicholas Maxwell
The formal sciences, mathematics, statistics and logic, do not acquire
knowledge of anything actual at all, but rather develop abstract problemsolving methods, applicable to as wide a range of circumstances as
possible. Computer science and artificial intelligence straddle technology,
biology, psychology and formal science. In the end, what really matters is
the thinking that goes on as an integral part of personal, social and global
life, guiding action. A basic task of academia is to promote the
cooperative rationality of this socially active thinking. Academia is a
specialized part of the social world, and needs to interact with the rest of
the social world in accordance with rules (3) and (4).
The outcome of ensuring that academic inquiry puts all four rules, (1) to
(4), into practice (in seeking to help promote human welfare by intellectual
means) is that almost all aspects and departments of academia are changed,
some quite radically. Some features of the outcome, wisdom-inquiry, are
depicted in diagram 1.
It may be asked: If academia really is as grossly and damagingly
irrational as the above argument would seem to indicate, when and how
did this come about? My answer is that it came about as a result of the
botched implementation of what may be called “The Enlightenment
Programme” of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social
progress towards an enlightened world. The philosophes of the French
Enlightenment – Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet and the rest – thought that
this programme involved developing social science alongside natural
science. This idea was further developed throughout the 19th century by
figures as diverse as Marx and Mill, and was implemented in the early 20th
century with the creation of departments of social science. The outcome
was what I have been criticizing, knowledge-inquiry.
In order to implement the Enlightenment Programme properly, the
following three points need to be got right:
1. The progress-achieving methods of science need to be correctly
identified.
2. These methods need to be correctly generalized so that they become
fruitfully applicable to any human endeavour, whatever the aims may be,
and not just applicable to the endeavour of improving knowledge.
3. The correctly generalized progress-achieving methods then need to be
exploited correctly in the great human endeavour of trying to make social
progress towards an enlightened, wise, civilized world.
Unfortunately, the philosophes of the Enlightenment got all three points
Life of Value
25
wrong. And as a result these blunders, undetected and uncorrected, are
built into the intellectual-institutional structure of academia as it exists
today. I now spell out what these blunders are, and what needs to be done
to remove them. This constitutes my second argument for the urgent need
to transform knowledge-inquiry into wisdom-inquiry.33
First, the philosophes failed to capture correctly the progress-achieving
methods of natural science. From D’Alembert34 in the 18th century to
Popper in the 20th, the widely held view, amongst both scientists and
philosophers, has been, and continues to be, that science proceeds by
assessing theories impartially in the light of evidence, no permanent
assumption being accepted by science about the universe independently of
evidence. But this standard empiricist view is untenable. If taken literally,
it would instantly bring science to a standstill. For, given any accepted
theory of physics, T, Newtonian theory say, or quantum theory, endlessly
many empirically more successful rivals can be concocted which agree
with T about observed phenomena but disagree arbitrarily about some
unobserved phenomena. Physics would be drowned in an ocean of such
empirically more successful rival theories.
In practice, these rivals are excluded because they are disastrously
disunified. Two considerations govern acceptance of theories in physics:
empirical success and unity. But in persistently accepting unified theories,
to the extent of rejecting disunified rivals that are just as, or even more,
empirically successful, physics makes a big persistent assumption about
the universe. The universe is such that all disunified theories are false. It
has some kind of unified dynamic structure.
It is physically
comprehensible in the sense that explanations for phenomena exist to be
discovered.
But this untestable (and thus metaphysical) assumption that the universe
is physically comprehensible is profoundly problematic. Science is
obliged to assume, but does not know, that the universe is comprehensible.
Much less does it know that the universe is comprehensible in this or that
way. A glance at the history of physics reveals that ideas have changed
dramatically over time. In the 17th century there was the idea that the
universe consists of corpuscles, minute billiard balls, which interact only
33
Ibid., ch. 5.
J. d'Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot (New York:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1963; originally published in 1751).
34
26
Nicholas Maxwell
by contact. This gave way to the idea that the universe consists of pointparticles surrounded by rigid, spherically symmetrical fields of force,
which in turn gave way to the idea that there is one unified self-interacting
field, varying smoothly throughout space and time. Nowadays we have the
idea that everything is made up of minute quantum strings embedded in ten
or eleven dimensions of space-time. Some kind of assumption along these
lines must be made but, given the historical record, and given that any such
assumption concerns the ultimate nature of the universe, that of which we
are most ignorant, it is only reasonable to conclude that it is almost bound
to be false.
The way to overcome this fundamental dilemma inherent in the
scientific enterprise – as I have already indicated – is to construe physics as
making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions concerning the
comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these assumptions
becoming progressively less substantial and thus more likely to be true,
and also more nearly such that their truth is required for science, or the
pursuit of knowledge, to be possible at all, as one ascends the hierarchy:
see figure 2. In this way a framework of relatively insubstantial,
unproblematic, fixed assumptions and associated methods is created within
which much more substantial and problematic assumptions and associated
methods can be critically assessed, changed, and indeed improved (partly
in the light of the relative empirical success and failure of associated
scientific research programmes). Put another way, a framework of
relatively unspecific, unproblematic, fixed aims and methods is created
within which much more specific and problematic aims and methods
evolve as scientific knowledge evolves. (A basic aim of science is to
discover in what precise way the universe is comprehensible, this aim
evolving as assumptions about comprehensibility evolve.) Science adapts
its nature to what it finds out about the universe There is something like
positive feedback between improving knowledge, and improving aimsand-methods, improving knowledge-about-how-to-improve-knowledge –
the nub of scientific rationality, and the methodological key to the
unprecedented success of modern science.35
35
See N. Maxwell, “The Rationality of Scientific Discovery”, op. cit.; What’s Wrong
With Science?, op.cit.; From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., chs. 5 and 9; The
Comprehensibility of the Universe, op. cit.; Is Science Neurotic?, op. cit.; “Popper,
Kuhn, Lakatos and Aim-Oriented Empiricism”, Philosophia, 32;1-4 (2005), pp. 181239; From Knowledge to Wisdom, 2nd ed. (London: Pentire Press, 2007), ch. 14.
Life of Value
27
Natural science has made such astonishing progress in improving
knowledge and understanding of nature because it has put something like
the hierarchical methodology, indicated here, into scientific practice.
Officially, however, scientists continue to hold the standard empiricist
view that no untestable metaphysical theses concerning the
comprehensibility and knowability of the universe are accepted as a part of
scientific knowledge. In Is Science Neurotic? chapter 2, I argue that
science would be even more successful, in a number of ways, if scientists
adopted and explicitly implemented the hierarchical methodology
indicated here.36
But it is not just that there are unacknowledged, highly problematic
metaphysical assumptions inherent in the aims of science; there are, in
addition, unacknowledged, problematic assumptions concerning values,
and politics (the human use of science). Science does not just seek
explanatory truth; more generally, it seeks important truth, and this is
sought so that it will be used, in one way or another, ideally to contribute
to the quality of human life. These evaluative and political assumptions
implicit in the aims of science are, if anything, even more profoundly
problematic than the metaphysical assumptions. Here, too, problematic
aims need to be represented in the form of a hierarchy, aims becoming less
specific and problematic as one goes up the hierarchy, to facilitate the
critical assessment and improvement of aims (and associated methods).
Philosophy of science – the study of aims and methods of science –
becomes a vital, integral part of science itself.37
So much for the first blunder of the traditional Enlightenment, and how
to put it right.
Second, having failed to identify the methods of science correctly, the
philosophes naturally failed to generalize these methods properly. They
failed to appreciate that the idea of representing the problematic aims (and
associated methods) of science in the form of a hierarchy can be
generalized and applied fruitfully to other worthwhile enterprises besides
science. Many other enterprises have problematic aims – problematic
because aims conflict, and because what we seek may be unrealizable,
undesirable, or both. Such enterprises, with problematic aims, would
36
See also my “Do We Need a Scientific Revolution?”, Journal of Biological Physics
and Chemistry, 8;3 (September 2008).
37
From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., ch. 5; Is Science Neurotic?, op. cit., ch. 2.
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Nicholas Maxwell
Diagram 2: Hierarchical Aim-Oriented Empiricist Conception of
Science
benefit from employing a hierarchical methodology, generalized from that
of science, thus making it possible to improve aims and methods as the
enterprise proceeds. There is the hope that, as a result of exploiting in life
methods generalized from those employed with such success in science,
some of the astonishing success of science might be exported into other
worthwhile human endeavours, with problematic aims quite different from
those of science.
Third, and most disastrously of all, the philosophes failed completely to
try to apply such generalized, hierarchical progress-achieving methods to
the immense, and profoundly problematic enterprise of making social
progress towards an enlightened, wise world. The aim of such an
enterprise is notoriously problematic. For all sorts of reasons, what
constitutes a good world, an enlightened, wise or civilized world,
attainable and genuinely desirable, must be inherently and permanently
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29
problematic.
There are a number of ways of highlighting the inherently problematic
character of the aim of creating civilization. People have very different
ideas as to what does constitute civilization. Most views about what
constitutes Utopia, an ideally civilized society, have been unrealizable and
profoundly undesirable. People's interests, values and ideals clash. Even
values that, one may hold, ought to be a part of civilization may clash.
Thus freedom and equality, even though inter-related, may nevertheless
clash. It would be an odd notion of individual freedom which held that
freedom was for some, and not for others; and yet if equality is pursued too
singlemindedly this will undermine individual freedom, and will even
undermine equality, in that a privileged class will be required to enforce
equality on the rest, as in the old Soviet Union. A basic aim of legislation
for civilization, we may well hold, ought to be increase freedom by
restricting it: this brings out the inherently problematic, paradoxical
character of the aim of achieving civilization. One thinker who has
stressed the inherently problematic, contradictory character of the idea of
civilization is Isaiah Berlin.38 Berlin thought the problem could not be
solved; I, on the contrary, hold that the hierarchical methodology indicated
here provides us with the means to learn how to improve our solution to it
in real life.
Here, above all, then, it is essential to employ the generalized version of
the hierarchical, progress-achieving methods of science, designed
specifically to facilitate progress when basic aims are problematic: see
Figure 3. It is just this that the philosophes failed to do. Instead of
applying the hierarchical methodology to social life, the philosophes
sought to apply a seriously defective conception of scientific method to
social science, to the task of making progress towards, not a better world,
but to better knowledge of social phenomena. And this ancient blunder is
still built into the institutional and intellectual structure of academia today,
inherent in the current character of social science.39
Properly implemented, in short, the Enlightenment idea of learning from
scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened
38
I. Berlin, Concepts and Categories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 74-79.
See my From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., ch. 5; “Do Philosophers Love
Wisdom?”, The Philosophers’ Magazine, Issue 22, 2nd quarter (2003), pp. 22-24; Is
Science Neurotic?, op. cit., ch. 3 and 4.
39
30
Nicholas Maxwell
world would involve developing social inquiry, not as social science, but
as social methodology, or social philosophy. A basic task would be to get
into personal and social life, and into other institutions besides that of
science – into government, industry, agriculture, commerce, the media,
law, education, international relations – hierarchical, progress-achieving
methods (designed to improve problematic aims) arrived at by generalizing
the methods of science. A basic task for academic inquiry as a whole
would be to help humanity learn how to resolve its conflicts and problems
of living in more just, cooperatively rational ways than at present. This
task would be intellectually more fundamental than the scientific task of
acquiring knowledge. Academia would have just sufficient power (but no
more) to retain its independence from government, industry, the press,
public opinion, and other centres of power and influence in the social
world. It would seek to learn from, educate, and argue with the great
social world beyond, but would not dictate. Academic thought would be
pursued as a specialized, subordinate part of what is really important and
fundamental: the thinking that goes on, individually, socially and
institutionally, in the social world, guiding individual, social and
institutional actions and life. Instead of the intellectual and humanitarian
aims of science being distinct, as for knowledge-inquiry, these aims
become one and the same: to help humanity acquire wisdom – wisdom
being the capacity to realize (apprehend and create) what is of value in life,
for oneself and others, wisdom thus including knowledge and
technological know-how but much else besides.
One outcome of getting into social and institutional life the kind of aimevolving, hierarchical methodology indicated above, generalized from
science, is that it becomes possible for us to develop and assess rival
philosophies of life as a part of social life, somewhat as theories are
developed and assessed within science. Such a hierarchical methodology
provides a framework within which competing views about what our aims
and methods in life should be – competing religious, political and moral
views – may be cooperatively assessed and tested against broadly agreed,
unspecific aims (high up in the hierarchy of aims) and the experience of
personal and social life. There is the possibility of cooperatively and
progressively improving such philosophies of life (views about what is of
value in life and how it is to be achieved) much as theories are cooperativelyand
progressively improved in science. In science, ideally, theories are critically
assessed with respect to each other, with respect to metaphysical ideas
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Diagram 3: Hierarchical Social Methodology Generalized from
Science
concerning the comprehensibility of the universe, and with respect to
experience (observational and experimental results). In a somewhat
analogous way, diverse philosophies of life may be critically assessed with
respect to each other, with respect to relatively uncontroversial, agreed ideas
about aims and what is of value, and with respect to experience – what we
do, achieve, fail to achieve, enjoy and suffer – the aim being to improve
philosophies of life (and more specific philosophies of more specific enterprises
within life such as government, education or art) so that they offer greater help
with the realization of what is of value in life. This hierarchical
methodology is especially relevant to the task of resolving conflicts about
aims and ideals, as it helps disentangle agreement (high up in the hierarchy)
and disagreement (more likely to be low down in the hierarchy).
Wisdom-inquiry, because of its greater rigour, has intellectual standards
32
Nicholas Maxwell
that are, in important respects, different from those of knowledge-inquiry.
Whereas knowledge-inquiry demands that emotions and desires, values,
human ideals and aspirations, philosophies of life be excluded from the
intellectual domain of inquiry, wisdom-inquiry requires that they be
included. In order to discover what is of value in life it is essential that we
attend to our feelings and desires. But not everything we desire is
desirable, and not everything that feels good is good. Feelings, desires and
values need to be subjected to critical scrutiny. And of course feelings,
desires and values must not be permitted to influence judgements of factual
truth and falsity. Wisdom-inquiry embodies a synthesis of traditional
rationalism and romanticism. It includes elements from both, and it
improves on both. It incorporates romantic ideals of integrity, having to do
with motivational and emotional honesty, honesty about desires and aims;
and at the same time it incorporates traditional rationalist ideals of
integrity, having to do with respect for objective fact, knowledge, and valid
argument. Traditional rationalism takes its inspiration from science and
method; romanticism takes its inspiration from art, from imagination, and
from passion. Wisdom-inquiry holds art to have a fundamental rational
role in inquiry, in revealing what is of value, and unmasking false values;
but science, too, is of fundamental importance. What we need, for
wisdom, is an interplay of sceptical rationality and emotion, an interplay of
mind and heart, “so that we may acquire heartfelt minds, and mindful
hearts”.40 Wisdom-inquiry promises to heal the great rift in our culture, so
graphically depicted by Snow.41
All in all, if the Enlightenment revolution had been carried through
properly, the three steps indicated above being correctly implemented, the
outcome would have been a kind of academic inquiry very different from
what we have at present, inquiry devoted primarily to the intellectual aim
of acquiring knowledge.42
A number of objections may be made to these two arguments designed
to establish that knowledge-inquiry urgently needs to be transformed into
wisdom-inquiry.
40
N. Maxwell, What’s Wrong With Science?, op. cit., p. 5.
C.P. Snow, The Two Cultures and a Second Look (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1964).
42
See my From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., chs. 5 and 7; Is Science Neurotic?, op.
cit., chs. 3 and 4.
41
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33
It may be objected that these arguments assume that a basic aim of
science, of inquiry, is to help promote human welfare, knowledge being a
means to that end. But this assumption may be challenged. The proper
basic aim of science (or of inquiry), it may be held, is to acquire
knowledge, whether this benefits humanity or not. Once this is
acknowledged, the two arguments above collapse.
I have three replies. First, even if it is conceded that the proper aim of
science is just knowledge, this does not tell against the decisive point that
the scientific aim of acquiring knowledge makes implicit, problematic
assumptions concerning metaphysics, values and politics. The idea that
science seeks truth dissociated from assumptions concerning metaphysics,
values and politics (the human use of science) is untenable. Once this
point is acknowledged, it becomes clear that science is more rigorous
intellectually if it subjects assumptions concerning metaphysics, values and
politics to sustained criticism, in an attempt to improve them. Science
pursued in this manner cannot be regarded as seeking knowledge
dissociated from all considerations of its human value and use. Second,
once it is acknowledged that problematic assumptions concerning values
and politics are, inevitably, inherent in the aims and priorities of research,
it becomes a matter of vital importance that academia has available
intellectual/institutional means progressively to improve these assumptions. Wisdom-inquiry provides these means, whereas knowledge-inquiry
does not. Finally, one may well hold that it is immoral to defend the view
that science should restrict itself to seeking knowledge irrespective of its
human value. There are three points to note. First, substantial public
funds are devoted to supporting science in the expectation that science will
benefit humanity. Given this, how can it be morally justifiable to defend a
conception of science (a) which holds that any human value science has is
purely incidental, and (b) which is damagingly irrational when judged
from the standpoint of human value? Second, science in any case has a
massive impact on society. Do not scientists have a prime responsibility to
ensure that science is pursued in such a way that this impact is as good as
possible? This means science should be pursued within the framework of
wisdom-inquiry. Third, humanity is in deep trouble, and urgently needs to
learn how to manage its affairs more wisely. It must be immoral to oppose
a kind of academic inquiry rationally designed to help humanity learn this
vital lesson.
Another objection that may be made to the whole argument is that it
34
Nicholas Maxwell
cannot be correct to hold that social inquiry is intellectually more
fundamental than natural science. Before problems of living can be
tackled, relevant knowledge must first be acquired. I have decisively
refuted this orthodox view.43 Simply in order to know what is relevant, we
have to have some preliminary idea about what to do in response to a
problem of living. More fundamentally, action, and the capacity to act, is
more fundamental than propositional knowledge. Knowing how, to use
Ryle’s terms, comes before knowing that.
Finally, it may be objected that wisdom-inquiry may do better justice to
the practical aspects of inquiry, but does not do justice to the intellectual or
cultural aspects of inquiry – inquiry pursued for its own sake. My reply,
here, is that wisdom-inquiry does better justice to both aspects of inquiry,
“pure” and “applied”.
From the standpoint of the intellectual or cultural aspect of inquiry, what
really matters is the desire that people have to see, to know, to understand,
the passionate curiosity that individuals have about aspects of the world,
and the knowledge and understanding that people acquire and share as a
result of actively following up their curiosity. An important
task for academic thought in universities is to encourage non-professional
thought to flourish outside universities. As Einstein once remarked
"Knowledge exists in two forms – lifeless, stored in books, and alive in the
consciousness of men. The second form of existence is after all the
essential one; the first, indispensable as it may be, occupies only an
inferior position".44
Wisdom-inquiry is designed to promote all this in a number of ways. It
does so as a result of holding thought, at its most fundamental, to be the
personal thinking we engage in as we live. It does so by recognizing that
acquiring knowledge and understanding involves articulating and solving
personal problems that one encounters in seeking to know and understand.
It does so by recognizing that passion, emotion and desire, have a rational
role to play in inquiry, disinterested research being a myth. Again, as
Einstein has put it "The most beautiful experience we can have is the
mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of
true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer
From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., 1st ed., pp. 171-181; 2nd ed., pp. 194-205..
44
A. Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (London: Souvenir Press, 1973; first published
1954), p. 80.
43
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35
wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed".45
Knowledge-inquiry, by contrast, all too often fails to nourish "the holy
curiosity of inquiry",46 and may even crush it out altogether. Knowledgeinquiry gives no rational role to emotion and desire; passionate curiosity, a
sense of mystery, of wonder, have no place, officially, within the rational
pursuit of knowledge. The intellectual domain becomes impersonal and
split off from personal feelings and desires; it is difficult for "holy
curiosity" to flourish in such circumstances. Knowledge-inquiry hardly
encourages the view that inquiry at its most fundamental is the thinking
that goes on as a part of life; on the contrary, it upholds the idea that
fundamental research is highly esoteric, conducted by physicists in
contexts remote from ordinary life. Even though the aim of inquiry may,
officially, be human knowledge, the personal and social dimension of this
is all too easily lost sight of, and progress in knowledge is conceived of in
impersonal terms, stored lifelessly in books and journals. Rare is it for
popular books on science to take seriously the task of exploring the
fundamental problems of a science in as accessible, non-technical and
intellectually responsible a way as possible. (A recent, remarkable
exception is Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality.47) Such work is not
highly regarded by knowledge-inquiry, as it does not contribute to "expert
knowledge". The failure of knowledge-inquiry to take seriously the highly
problematic nature of the aims of inquiry leads to insensitivity as to what
aims are being pursued, to a kind of institutional hypocrisy. Officially,
knowledge is being sought "for its own sake", but actually the goal may be
immortality, fame, the flourishing of one's career or research group, as the
existence of bitter priority disputes in science indicates. Education suffers.
Science students are taught a mass of established scientific knowledge, but
may not be informed of the problems which gave rise to this knowledge,
the problems which scientists grappled with in creating the knowledge.
Even more rarely are students encouraged themselves to grapple with such
problems. And rare, too, is it for students to be encouraged to articulate
their own problems of understanding that must, inevitably arise in
absorbing all this information, or to articulate their instinctive criticisms of
45
Ibid., p. 11.
A. Einstein, “Autobiographical Remarks”, in P. A. Schilpp. (ed.) Albert Einstein:
Philosopher-Scientist (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1949), p. 17.
47
R. Penrose, The Road to Reality (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004).
46
36
Nicholas Maxwell
the received body of knowledge. All this tends to reduce education to a
kind of intellectual indoctrination, and serves to kill "holy curiosity".
Officially, courses in universities divide up into those that are vocational,
like engineering, medicine and law, and those that are purely educational,
like physics, philosophy or history. What is not noticed, again through
insensitivity to problematic aims, is that the supposedly purely educational
are actually vocational as well: the student is being trained to be an
academic physicist, philosopher or historian, even though only a minute
percentage of the students will go on to become academics. Real
education, which must be open-ended, and without any pre-determined
goal, rarely exists in universities, and yet few notice.48
I might add that the hierarchical conception of science indicated above
does better justice to the scientific quest for understanding than does
orthodox standard empiricist views – and thus does better justice to the
value of science pursued for its own sake.49
In order to enhance our understanding of persons as beings of value,
potentially and actually, we need to understand them empathically, by
putting ourselves imaginatively into their shoes, and experiencing, in
imagination, what they feel, think, desire, fear, plan, see, love and hate.
For wisdom-inquiry, this kind of empathic understanding is rational and
intellectually fundamental. Articulating problems of living, and proposing
and assessing possible solutions is, we have seen, the fundamental
intellectual activity of wisdom-inquiry. But it is just this that we need to
do to acquire empathic understanding. Social inquiry, in tackling problems
of living, is also promoting empathic understanding of people. Empathic
understanding is essential to wisdom. Elsewhere I have argued, indeed,
that empathic understanding plays an essential role in the evolution of
consciousness. It is required for cooperative action, and even for science.50
Granted knowledge-inquiry, on the other hand, empathic understanding
hardly satisfies basic requirements for being an intellectually legitimate
48
These considerations are developed further in my What’s Wrong With Science?, op.
cit.; From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit.; and Is Science Neurotic?, op. cit.
49
See my The Comprehensibility of the Universe, op. cit., chs. 4 and 8; Is Science
Neurotic?, op. cit., ch. 2.
50
For a fuller exposition of such an account of empathic understanding see my From
Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., 1st ed., pp. 171-189 and ch. 10; 2nd ed., pp. 194-213,
and ch. 10; and The Human World in the Physical Universe, op. cit., chs. 5-7 and 9.
Life of Value
37
kind of explanation and understanding.51 It has the status merely of “folk
psychology”, on a par with “folk physics”. Here again, wisdom-inquiry
does better justice to inquiry pursued for its own sake than does
knowledge-inquiry.52
After the publication of From Knowledge to Wisdom in 1984, I
published a number of summaries of the argument, striving always to put
the argument over in as fresh, lucid and convincing a way as possible.53
In 1998 I published The Comprehensibility of the Universe, which spells
out in some detail the argument for aim-oriented empiricism, and considers
implications of the view for theoretical physics. I argue that aim-oriented
empiricism solves a range of fundamental problems in the philosophy of
science which cannot be solved within the framework of standard
empiricism, including the problem of induction, the problem of
verisimilitude, and the problem of simplicity, or unity, of theory. The
latter problem is one that I had racked my brains over ever since 1972,
when aim-oriented empiricism first occurred to me. I only began to solve
the problem when I appreciated that simplicity, or unity, refers, not to the
axiomatic structure or form of a theory, but to its content, to what the
theory says about the world. For unity, we require that a theory asserts
precisely the same for all the phenomena to which the theory applies.
Given that a theory makes somewhat different assertions about different
ranges of phenomena, degrees of disunity can arise depending on how
different, how seriously different, these different assertions are.54
See From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., 1st ed., pp. 183-189; 2nd ed., pp. 206-213.
For my responses to further objections, see Ibid., ch. 8; Is Science Neurotic?, pp.
121-147; and From Knowledge to Wisdom (2007), ch. 13.
53
For the best of these short expositions, see “What Kind of Inquiry Can Best Help Us
Create a Good World?, op. cit.; “Can Humanity Learn to become Civilized? The
Crisis of Science without Civilization”, op. cit.; “Two Great Problems of Learning”,
Teaching in Higher Education 8 (January 2003), pp. 129-34; “Do Philosophers Love
Wisdom?”, op. cit.; “A Revolution for Science and the Humanities: From Knowledge
to Wisdom”, Dialogue and Universalism, XV;1-2 (2005), pp. 29-57; “Philosophy
Seminars for Five-Year-Olds”, Learning for Democracy, 1;2 (2005), pp. 71-77
(reprinted in Gifted Education International, 22;2/3 (2007), pp. 122-7); “From
Knowledge to Wisdom: The Need for an Academic Revolution”, op. cit; “Do We Need
a Scientific Revolution?”, op. cit.
54
For details see The Comprehensibility of the Universe, op. cit., chs 3 and 4; Is
Science Neurotic?, op. cit., appendix, section 2; and From Knowledge to Wisdom
(2007), ch. 14.
51
52
38
Nicholas Maxwell
My exposition and defence of aim-oriented empiricism and wisdominquiry is further elaborated in Is Science Neurotic? and in chapters 6 and
12 to 14 of the second edition of From Knowledge to Wisdom.
5. The Human World/Physical Universe Problem (HWPhU Problem)
I turn now to spelling out what I have done in connection with my first
problem – the problem of how it is possible for there to be life of value
(the human world as we experience it) embedded in the physical universe.
I summarize what I have done in 37 numbered points.
1. We should seek to solve the most severe version of the problem. No
attempt should be made to make the problem less severe by espousing antirealist interpretations of physics, behaviourist views about inner
experiences, or subjectivist views about what is of value.55
2. The problem is generated by physicalism – the doctrine that the world is
made up entirely of fundamental physical entities interacting in accordance
with some unified pattern of physical law. Physicalism may be false, but
in what follows physicalism is assumed to be true, and the task is to see
whether justice can be done to what seems to be most characteristic and of
value in our human world granted the truth of physicalism.56
3. An early and massively influential attempted solution is Cartesian
dualism. Granted Cartesian dualism, the HWPhU problem tends to reduce
to two problems: (1) what is the relationship between mind and brain? (2)
How can mind influence the brain – required for free will? Even
philosophers who reject Cartesian dualism tend to concentrate attention on
these two problems. It is vital, however, to return to, and give priority to,
the more general, more fundamental HWPhU problem – the problem
which Cartesian dualism fails to solve. (1) and (2) need to be put into the
broader, more fundamental context of the HWPhU problem.57
4. This needs to be done because the solutions to (1) and (2) require it.
Thus, in order to solve the mind/brain problem we need, initially, to turn
our backs on the mental and consider very carefully the nature of the
55
The Human World in the Physical Universe, op. cit., p. 6.
“Physics and Common Sense”, op. cit.; From Knowledge to Wisdom, ch. 10; The
Human World in the Physical Universe, pp. 5-6.
57
From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., 1st ed., pp. 260-264, 2nd ed., pp 280-285; The
Human World in the Physical Universe, p. 5 and p. 97.
56
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39
physical. Furthermore, we need to take seriously that non-physical,
perceptual properties, such as colours, exist objectively in the world. Such
considerations arise naturally within the context of the HWPhU problem,
but do not within the context of the mind/brain problem. The brainprocess theory of inner experiences that emerges has a major impact on
how the problem of free will is conceived.58
5. The crucial step that one needs to take in order to solve the HWPhU
problem is to recognize that physics seeks only to provide the means (in
principle) for a complete description of the world of a very special type. A
complete physical description of the world would not, in other words, be a
complete description. The silence of physics about experiential, human
and evaluative features of things – such as perceptual properties of things
external to us, inner experiences, the meaningful and evaluative, provides
no grounds whatsoever for holding that such things do not exist – just as
long as it can be shown that these are the kind of features of things physics
does not seek to describe.59
6. Physics is concerned only with what may be called the causally
efficacious aspect of things. Given any isolated system, physics seeks only
to describe that aspect of it which determines necessarily (but possibly
only probabilistically) subsequent states of the system when described in
the same terms. All non-causally efficacious features of things, such as
experiential and value-laden features, will receive no mention whatsoever
by the complete physical description, although physical correlates of these
features will be described.60
7. More specifically, a basic aim of theoretical physics is to discover a
theory, T, which is true, unified, applicable in principle to all phenomena,
and such that, given any isolated system, S, it provides the means for a true
description of the state of S at any instant such that this description implies
true descriptions of subsequent states of the system, couched in the same
terms. (This characterization of the aim of theoretical physics needs to be
improved in various ways to take into account such things as probabilism,
From Knowledge to Wisdom, 1st ed., pp. 260-264, 2nd ed., pp. 280-285; The Human
World in the Physical Universe, p. 97, pp. 141-142 and 155-156.
59
“Physics and Common Sense”, op. cit.; “Can there be Necessary Connections
between Successive Events?”. op. cit.; “Understanding Sensations”, op. cit.; From
Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., ch 10; The Human World in the Physical Universe, ch.
5.
60
As in previous note.
58
40
Nicholas Maxwell
the non-existence of isolated systems, field theory, special and general
relativity and quantum theory. I here ignore these complications, as they
do not affect the basic point being made concerning the inherent
incompleteness of even a complete physics.) This requires that T is true
when interpreted “essentialistically”, as attributing necessitating properties
to fundamental physical entities (or the fundamental physical entity). T
provides the means for a complete or comprehensive description of the
world in two senses. First, T applies to any isolated system. Second, T
refers to everything that needs to be referred to in order to carry out the
predictive task just indicated. But this does not mean that the predictive
description, couched in the terms of T, describes all that there is. If the
isolated system in question includes a person who perceives colours,
sounds and smells, has inner experiences, thinks thoughts and utters or
writes meaningful sentences, then none of this will be included in the
predictive description provided by T (although physical correlates of these
things will be included) just as long as this omission does not interfere
with the predictive task indicated above.61
8. A key element of this proposal is that theoretical physics seeks to
characterize “necessitating properties” of fundamental physical entities,
and does not just specify laws or regularities in phenomena. It requires a
thoroughly anti-Humean account of causation. It requires that necessary
connections between successive states of affairs are possible – a point I
argued for in my MA thesis and second published paper (1968a). It also
requires, not just scientific realism but, rather more strongly, scientific
essentialism. In order to be ultimately acceptable, physical theories must
be amenable to essentialistic interpretation. This in turn requires that a
fully micro-realist, essentialist version of quantum theory needs to be
developed – something I have sought to supply with my work on
“propensiton” quantum theory. Essentialistic probabilism is, I argue, the
key to making sense of the quantum domain. I put forward such a version
of quantum theory: it is fundamentally probabilistic, fully micro-realistic,
able to recover all the empirical success of orthodox quantum theory, and
yet empirically distinct from that theory for experiments not yet
performed.62
61
Ibid., plus “The Mind-Body Problem and Explanatory Dualism” op. cit.
For conjectural essentialism see my “Can there be Necessary Connections between
Successive Events?”, op. cit.; The Comprehensibility of the Universe, op. cit., pp. 14162
Life of Value
41
9. Recognizing clearly what it is physics aims to do – so that a complete
physical description of the world would not be a complete description –
solves a fundamental mystery about consciousness and the experiential. In
seeking to understand consciousness, we may invoke the best mode of
understanding available, namely scientific understanding. But when we do
this, and explore what goes on inside our heads scientifically, we learn
much about such things as neurons, synaptic junctions, exchange of
sodium and potassium ions and so on, but never seem to encounter
anything remotely like a thought, a feeling, an inner sensation, a moment
of conscious awareness, as we experience these things. Before the gaze of
science, consciousness seems to evaporate; it seems to become a profound
mystery, utterly resistant to scientific explanation and understanding. But
once we have grasped the above account of what physics, and all of natural
science in principle reducible to physics, aims to achieve, it is clear that the
fact that the scientific account of what goes inside our heads tells us
nothing about consciousness as we experience it does not mean
consciousness is inherently and profoundly mysterious. It just means that
the experiential aspect of what goes on inside our heads is of no interest to
physics because no reference needs to be made to it to complete the
predictive task of physics. Consciousness and the experiential evade
physical explanation, not because they are inherently mysterious, but
because they are, from the standpoint of physics, entirely without interest,
irrelevant to the task in hand.63
10. But might not it be possible for physics to describe experiential aspects
of things? A simple argument establishes that the answer is “no”. In order
to know what sort of property redness as we perceive it is, one must
oneself have at some stage in one’s life have perceived red things, or at
least experienced the visual sensation of redness. Simply in order to know
155. For an account of my development of essentialistic quantum theory, and
references to relevant publications see note 3 above. See also “Are Probabilism and
Special Relativity Incompatible?”, Philosophy of Science, 52 (1985), pp. 23-43; “Does
Orthodox Quantum Theory Undermine, or Support, Scientific Realism?”, The
Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1993), pp. 139-57; The Comprehensibility of the
Universe, op. cit. ch. 7; “Does Probabilism Solve the Great Quantum Mystery?”,
Theoria, 19/3; 51 (2004), pp. 321-36.
63
See “Understanding Sensations”, op. cit.; From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., 1st
ed., pp. 261-267, 2nd ed., pp. 282-288; “The Mind-Body Problem and Explanatory
Dualism” op. cit.; The Human World in the Physical Universe, ch. 5.
42
Nicholas Maxwell
what “roses are red” means (where “red” refers to the perceptual property),
one must oneself have had the visual sensation of redness – which we may
take to mean that one has had occur in one’s brain a particular kind of
brain process. A person colour-blind, or blind, from birth, cannot know
what redness is. But such a person is not thereby debarred from
understanding all of physics, just as well as any sighted person. Such a
person is not debarred from understanding everything implied by physics –
which means no purely physical description can imply “This is red”, where
“red” is understood to refer to the experiential or perceptual property. (The
colour-blind person can understand everything implied by physics, but
cannot understand “This is red”; hence “This is red” cannot be implied by
physics.) Not only does physics not need to refer to redness; it cannot do
so. This argument does not establish that redness exists, it just establishes
that the silence of physics about redness – and endless other experiential
and value-laden features of things – provides no grounds whatsoever for
supposing that such features do not really exist.64 This is the argument,
first spelled out by me in 1966 and 1968 65 which, wrenched out of
context, received a great deal of subsequent attention as a result of
subsequent publications of Thomas Nagel66 and Franck Jackson,67 eight
and twenty years later.68 Closely related theses of experiential physicalism
have not, unfortunately, received a similar degree of attention. I still hope
that, one day, philosophers might come to consider, not just this argument,
but the thesis of, and arguments for, experiential physicalism as a whole.
11. Might not postulates be added to the true physical theory of everything,
T, linking physical and experiential features, so that a new theory, T*, is
arrived at, genuinely complete and comprehensive, capable of predicting
and explaining experiential features in additional to physical features,
64
Physics and Common Sense: A Critique of Physicalism, op. cit.; “Physics and
Common Sense”, op. cit.; “Understanding Sensations”, op. cit.; From Knowledge to
Wisdom, op. cit., pp. 262-263, 2nd ed., pp. 283-284; “The Mind-Body Problem and
Explanatory Dualism” op. cit.; The Human World in the Physical Universe, ch. 5.
65
“Physics and Common Sense”, op. cit.; “Understanding Sensations”, op. cit.
66
T. Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”, op. cit.
67
F. Jackson, “What Mary Didn’t Know”, op. cit.
68
When I drew Thomas Nagel’s attention to my papers of 1966 and 1968 he wrote in a
letter, with great generosity “There is no justice. No, I was unaware of your papers,
which made the central point before anyone else.” Jackson acknowledged, however,
that he had read my 1968 paper before writing his.
Life of Value
43
unlike T? Such a theory, T*, would be so horrendously complex and ad
hoc that, even though predictive, it would not be explanatory. Each
correlating postulate would be horrendously complex.
Given the
complexities of colour vision, it is clear that the postulate specifying
physical correlates of the perceptual property “red” would be almost
inconceivably complex. And given what we may presume to be the
complexity and variety of brain processes that correlate with the visual
experience of redness, we may assume that the postulate specifying
physical correlates of the visual experience of redness would also be
extraordinarily complex. Furthermore, when one takes into account the
great number and variety of non-physical experiential and personalistic
features of things, actual and potential, associated with human beings,
other sentient animals and beings, actual and possible, it becomes clear that
there would be a vast number of additional postulates associated with T*,
each one of which would be incredibly complex. T* would be so complex
and ad hoc as to be entirely non-explanatory. Here, in other words, is the
explanation as to why physics eschews all reference to the experiential:
physics must do this in order to develop the powerfully explanatory
theories that it does develop. Physics fails to explain the experiential, not
because the experiential is inherently mysterious and inexplicable, but
rather because excluding all reference to the experiential is the price that
must be paid to have the astonishingly explanatory theories of physics that
we do have.69
12. Two rival theories of perception need to be distinguished, which may
be called internalism and externalism. According to internalism, what we
directly perceive, what we directly know about in perception, is our inner
experiences: knowledge of external objects is inferred, somewhat shakily,
from our immediate knowledge of our inner experiences. According to
externalism, it is exactly the other way round. What we directly perceive,
what we directly know about in perception, is what we ordinarily assume
we perceive, objects external to us, tables, trees and houses; our knowledge
of our inner sensory experiences is inferred, somewhat shakily, from our
immediate knowledge of objects external to us.
13. Physicalism may seem to imply internalism, for at least two reasons.
69
See my From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., 1st ed., pp. 263-264, 2nd ed., pp. 284285; “The Mind-Body Problem and Explanatory Dualism”, op. cit., pp. 64-65; The
Human World in the Physical Universe, pp.119-121.
44
Nicholas Maxwell
First, the silence of physics about perceptual properties may be taken to
mean that they do not exist, and hence externalism cannot be correct
because what we ordinarily assume we know about objects external to us
in perception is almost entirely false. Second, physicalism applied to
perception may seem to imply internalism, because it implies that a
complex chain of processes links the external object to our perceptual
experience of it: light is reflected from the object, enters our eyes, activates
cells in our retina which cause neurons of the optic nerve to fire, which in
turn cause vast numbers of neurons in the brain to fire, eventually leading
to the experience of seeing the external object. What we really know about
is the last event in this chain of events, namely the inner perceptual
experience. From that we infer (shakily) our knowledge about the external
object.70
14. Both arguments are invalid. The first has already been shown to be
invalid. The second is invalid because the existence of the chain of events
provides no grounds whatsoever for holding that what we directly see and
really know about in perception is the last event in the chain of events
associated with perception. What we directly perceive is what we
primarily know about in perception, and that, we may argue, is what we
ordinarily assume we know about in perception, external perceived objects
(when we are not suffering from illusions or hallucinations). That a chain
of events exists between the perceived object and our brain does not mean
that what we directly perceive is the last event in the chain. On the
contrary, we do not perceive our inner experiences at all. Our knowledge
of our inner perceptual experiences is derived from our more direct,
primary knowledge of perceived objects external to us. If I have the
experience of seeing a red rose, what I know about this experience is
merely: something is going on inside me which is the sort of thing that
goes on when I see a red rose.71
15. We may adopt the view, in short, that colours, sounds and other
perceptual qualities are real, objective properties of things in the world
around us, and we know about these qualities as a result, and only as a
result, of perceiving these things. Objectivism about perceptual qualities,
70
“Physics and Common Sense”, op. cit., pp. 300-301; The Human World in the
Physical Universe, pp. 75-76.
71
“Physics and Common Sense”; “Understanding Sensations”; “The Mind-Body
Problem and Explanatory Dualism”; The Human World in the Physical Universe, pp.
98-100.
Life of Value
45
and externalism, are linked together, just as subjectivism about perceptual
qualities, and internalism, are linked together.72
16. But can it really be the case that colours (and other perceptual
qualities) are objective? In one sense of objective, yes, in another sense,
no. If by objective we mean “really existing in the external world”, then
what the above arguments have shown is that we have every reason to
believe colours are objective, and no reason to believe that they are not.
But if by objective, we mean capable of being known about whatever your
sense organs and brain may be like, then the answer must be no, colours
are not objective. In order to see and know about colours, as we noncolour-blind humans perceive them, you must have the physiology of a
non-colour-blind human being. Aliens, with brains so different from ours
that brain processes that are colour experiences cannot occur in them,
cannot know what red, blue, green, as experienced by us, are. In this
second sense, colours are subjective, not objective. Colours are, I argue,
objective in the first sense, subjective in the second sense. They exist out
there in the world, but can only be known about by beings sufficiently like
ourselves73
17. The transition from internalism to externalism has dramatic
consequences for the mind/brain problem. Internalism implies that we
directly “see” and know about our inner experiences. But these inner
perceptual experiences – of red roses, green trees and blue skies – are
clearly utterly different from all processes going on in the brain (firing of
neurons, etc.). Internalism all but forces us to adopt some version of
dualism which postulates mental entities or processes utterly distinct from
neurological or physical processes going on in the brain. All this is
changed profoundly the moment externalism is adopted. For, according to
externalism, we simply do not ordinarily know enough about our inner
experiences to exclude the possibility that these inner experiences are brain
processes.
Given the known intimate connections between inner
experiences and brain processes, the obvious conjecture to adopt, once
externalism is accepted, is that our inner experiences are brain processes –
72
“Physics and Common Sense”; “Understanding Sensations”; From Knowledge to
Wisdom, op. cit., 1st ed., pp. 251-252, 2nd ed., pp. 273-274; “The Mind-Body Problem
and Explanatory Dualism”; The Human World in the Physical Universe, pp. 97-121.
73
“Physics and Common Sense”, pp. 310-311; “The Mind-Body Problem and
Explanatory Dualism”, pp. 56-57; The Human World in the Physical Universe, pp. 3437 and 112-119.
46
Nicholas Maxwell
or “head processes” as they may be called, to adopt neutral terminology
between the physical and the experiential.74
18. Head processes, it may be held, have two aspects: physical and
experiential. The experiential aspect of a head process is what one learns
about when a sufficiently similar head process occurs in one’s own brain.
This is what the experiential aspect of a head process is – this and no
more.75
19. A complete physical description of a conscious brain would be entirely
silent about consciousness, about the experiential aspects of the physical
processes going on in the brain, for exactly the same reason as a complete
physical description of a tree would be silent about the greenness of its
leaves: experiential features of brain processes, and perceptual features of
leaves, are entirely without interest to physics. No reference to them is
needed for the predictive task of physics to proceed, and no reference can
be made if physical theory is to be explanatory.76
20. This is a version of the identity thesis. It requires that Kripke’s (very
weak) arguments concerning contingent identity with rigid designators are
invalid. I have shown that Kripke’s arguments are indeed invalid.77
21. This two-aspect version of the identity thesis has dramatic
consequences for the free will/physicalism problem. It means that mental
processes, such as decisions to act, can play a crucial causal role in the
production of the intended action because these mental processes are also
physical processes occurring in the brain. The Cartesian nightmare as to
how the mind can influence the brain disappears because the mind is the
brain.78
22. Even though the experiential cannot be understood scientifically (for
perfectly understandable reasons), it can be understood personalistically –
a distinct kind of explanation and understanding as fundamental, in its own
74
“Physics and Common Sense”; “Understanding Sensations”; From Knowledge to
Wisdom, 1st ed., pp. 259-264, 2nd ed., pp. 280-285; The Human World in the Physical
Universe, pp. 97-103 and 112-119.
75
“Physics and Common Sense”; “Understanding Sensations”; The Human World in
the Physical Universe, pp. 117-119.
76
“Physics and Common Sense”; “Understanding Sensations”; From Knowledge to
Wisdom, op. cit., 1st ed., pp. 261-264, 2nd ed., pp. 281-285; “The Mind-Body Problem
and Explanatory Dualism”; The Human World in the Physical Universe, ch. 5.
77
Ibid., Appendix 3.
78
Ibid., pp. 141-142.
Life of Value
47
way, as scientific understanding. I understand another personalistically if I
can, in imagination, see, feel, experience, desire, fear, believe what the
other person sees, feels, etc. I must experience, in imagination, what the
other person desires and fears, what he seeks, what he sees as his problems,
and what actions he considers taking to solve these problems.79
23. Granted knowledge-inquiry, personalistic explanations do not qualify
as genuine explanations; they reduce to “folk psychology” to be replaced
by authentic explanations when psychology and neuroscience have
advanced sufficiently to provide them. Granted the more rigorous
wisdom-inquiry, however, personalistic explanations are intellectually
fundamental, being associated with the intellectually fundamental tasks of
articulating problems of living, and proposing and critically assessing
possible solutions.80
24. Viewed from a scientific perspective, the experiential domain
(consciousness, mental features of brain processes, perceptual qualities)
seems utterly mysterious and inexplicable because it seems inherently
beyond the scope of scientific explanation and understanding. This
inherent apparent scientific inexplicability of consciousness and the
experiential is, I claim, close to the nub of the mind/brain problem and,
more generally, the HWPhU problem. The viewpoint sketched here –
experiential physicalism – solves this part of the problem by (a) explaining
why it is that science cannot explain the mental, the experiential (points 9
and 10 above), and (b) demonstrating that consciousness, the experiential,
can be genuinely explained and understood by means of intellectually
authentic personalistic explanation and understanding. That part of the
experiential that we can ourselves experience is, potentially, fully
intelligible and understandable personalistically to us. But point (b) only
goes through if the arguments for wisdom-inquiry are valid. Granted
knowledge-inquiry, personalistic explanation is merely folk psychology;
its explanations are intellectually spurious and illusory. But grant wisdominquiry instead, and personalistic explanation becomes intellectually
genuine, an authentic mode of explanation that cannot be eliminated or
replaced. The experiential can indeed be genuinely understood by its
79
From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., 1st ed., pp. 174-189 and 264-273, 2nd ed., pp.
197-213 and 285-294; The Human World in the Physical Universe, pp. 103-112.
80
From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., 1st ed., pp. 183-189, 2nd ed., pp. 206-213; The
Human World in the Physical Universe, pp. 109-110.
48
Nicholas Maxwell
means. Here is one way in which my proposed solution to the “wisdominquiry problem” has a major impact on my proposed solution to the
mind/brain problem and the more general HWPhU problem.81
25. Personalistic understanding can be of intrinsic value; it makes possible
friendship, intimacy and love; it enables us to become acquainted with
what is of value in the lives of others. Unlike good scientific explanation,
personalistic explanation does not provide reliable prediction, and is thus
not a reliable tool for manipulating people. Instead, it is essential for
cooperation.82
26. Personalistic understanding is essential for science. In seeking to
acquire personalistic understanding of another, we may have two rather
different motives: we may want to understand the person, or we may want
to improve our knowledge and understanding of the world, and we seek to
discover what the other person believes about the world because we hope
this will contribute to our own knowledge. Science is the outcome of a
multitude of such acts of personalistic understandings between scientists,
with the personal dimension largely suppressed. Communication by means
of language, meaningful sentences, propositions, and thus theories too,
presuppose and are an elaboration of personalistic understanding.83
27. Grice showed that human communication involves multi-layered
interactions and acts of mutual understanding. This can be understood as
evolving, layer by layer, from elementary, one-layered, accidental animal
communication.84
28. A basic task for neuroscience is to discover what the neurological
correlates of consciousness are – how, that is, personalistic and
neurological (i.e. scientific) accounts of what goes on inside our beads are
correlated. This task must appeal to both scientific and personalistic
modes of explanation. The personalistic cannot be reduced to the
neurological (i.e. the scientific).85
29. A basic first step is to locate consciousness in the brain – i.e. to identify
From Knowledge to Wisdom, op. cit., 1st ed., pp. 261-273, 2nd ed., pp. 281-294; The
Human World in the Physical Universe, chs. 5 and 7.
82
From Knowledge to Wisdom, 1st ed., pp. 185-189, 2nd ed., pp. 208-213; The Human
World in the Physical Universe, pp. 108-109.
83
From Knowledge to Wisdom, 1st ed., pp. 188-189 and 264-267, 2nd ed., pp. 210-213,
and 285-288; The Human World in the Physical Universe, pp. 110-111.
84
Ibid., pp. 189-190.
85
See Ibid., ch. 8.
81
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49
neurological processes that are conscious processes (as opposed to
neurological processes that support, that are necessary for but are not
identical to, conscious processes). I conjecture that consciousness is to be
identified with neurological processes occurring in the mid brain (the
limbic system) together with whatever neurological processes happen to be
in strong two-way interaction with the mid brain. This hypothesis – a
modification of a hypothesis put forward by Wilder Penfield,86 Donald
McKay,87 and Francis Crick88 – can do justice to the key function of animal
consciousness: to guide the animal in its changing environment so that it
acts in such ways conducive to survival and reproductive success. In the
case of humans, the hypothesis can do justice both to the persistence, the
continuity, of consciousness, and to its immense variability and variety of
content, involving as it does perception, imagination, emotion, desire,
thought, and volition – the initiation and control of action.89
30. Why are brain processes and sensations correlated in the way that they
are? No one has been able to think of even a possible explanation. My
proposal is this. Our sensations – of sight, sound, smell, touch – are
isolated, widely separated, minute patches in a vast, smoothly varying,
multidimensional space of all possible sensations. The points of this space
can be put together in only one way so as to preserve experiential
“smoothness”, so that as one moves through the space, sensations vary
smoothly, like a sound, of fixed timbre and loudness varying smoothly as
the pitch is continuously varied. This smoothly varying space of all
possible sensations can only be correlated with smoothly varying,
functionally described brain processes in one way (so as to preserve
smoothness in both experienced sensation and corresponding functionally
described brain process). It is this unique matching which provides the
86
W. Penfield, “The cerebral cortex in man. 1. The cerebral cortex and Consciousness”, Arch. Neurol. and Psychiat. 40 (1938), pp. 417-442; The Excitable Cortex in
Conscious Man (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1958); The Mystery of the
Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).
87
D. MacKay, “Cerebral Organization and the Conscious Control of Action", in J.
Eccles, (ed.), Brain and Conscious Experience (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1966), pp.
422-445 and 312-313; “Divided Brains, Divided Minds?” in C. Blakemore and S.
Greenfield, (eds.), Mindwaves (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), pp. 5-16.
88
F. Crick, “Function of the thalamic reticular complex: The searchlight hypothesis”,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 81 (1984), pp. 4586-4590.
89
The Human World in the Physical Universe, ch. 8.
50
Nicholas Maxwell
explanation for the fact that the sensations we experience are correlated in
the specific way that they are with corresponding neurological processes
occurring in our brain. Any other correlations would violate the unique
smoothness-preserving mapping from the space of all possible sensations
to the space of all possible sensory brain processes.90
31. Human beings (and other sentient animals) are intelligible
simultaneously in two ways: personalistically and physically. I propose a
compatibilist solution the free will/ physicalism problem, the nub of which
claims that, for free will, we require that freedom-ascribing personalistic
explanations of human actions are both true and compatible with physical
explanations (counterfactuals implied by these two kinds of explanation all
being true). That this kind of double comprehensibility exists is possible
but almost miraculous. Compatibilism, in order to be acceptable, must
provide an explanation for this apparent miracle.91
32. In order to do this, a third kind of explanation needs to be invoked:
purposive explanation. This is applicable to any goal-pursuing entity,
whether sentient or not, and explains actions as being designed to realize
goals of the entity in question in the given environment. It is applicable to
all living things, to thermostats, guided missiles and robots. The atom of
purposiveness is the feedback mechanism.92
33. Darwinian theory needs to be interpreted in such a way that it helps
explain how and why purposive life has evolved and proliferated (and
should not be interpreted as explaining apparent purposiveness away).
Darwin is an exemplary philosopher, in that he helps to solve the
fundamental problem of how purposive beings, namely living things, can
have come to exist in a purposeless universe, in an extraordinarily fruitful
way. The idea that Darwinian theory, interpreted as being about the
evolution of purposive living things, can help us understand human history
and aspects of our human world, is sketched, as “the generalized
Darwinian Research Programme”, in From Knowledge to Wisdom, and
elaborated subsequently in The Human World in the Physical Universe. 93
90
The Human World in the Physical Universe, pp. 126-129; “Three Problems about
Consciousness and their Possible Resolution”, PMS WIPS 005 (November 15),
http://www.petemandik.com/blog/pms-wips/ .
91
The Human World in the Physical Universe, ch. 7.
92
From Knowledge to Wisdom, 1st ed., pp. 267-269, 2nd ed., pp. 288-289; The Human
World in the Physical Universe, pp. 130-131.
93
See From Knowledge to Wisdom, 1st ed., pp. 269-275, 2nd ed., pp. 290-296; and The
Life of Value
51
34. Reinterpretation of Darwinian theory is required in order that the
theory should help explain the existence, the evolution, of sentience and
consciousness. This reinterpretation emphasizes that the mechanisms of
evolution themselves evolve as evolution proceeds, gradually acquiring
purposive and personalistic aspects, via unconscious animal breeding
(offspring, sexual, and prey and predator selection), and cultural evolution
(based on individual learning and imitation). I have proposed a number of
key stages in the evolution of sentience and consciousness, from active and
motivational control to the emergence of imagination, personalistic
understanding and language.94
35. Human evolution has created fundamental new problems of living:
discovery of death; dramatic changes in environment and way of life; clash
of control systems (conscious and long-term); science without wisdom.95
36. I defend the view that what is of value exists objectively as a part of the
fabric of the human world, and rebut metaphysical, moral and
epistemological objections to this thesis of value-realism. What is of
value, I conjecture, is living life lovingly – or what comes into existence
when we live life lovingly.96
37. I put forward an argument for the reality of free will. First, wisdom,
construed as the capacity to realize what is of value in life (for oneself and
others) is a stronger notion than free will, in that it implies but is not
implied by free will. Second, what poses a threat to the reality of wisdom
or free will is the picture of the universe that emerges from modern natural
science (physicalism). But if science, as construed by aim-oriented
empiricism, is broadly correct, then we have achieved something of
undeniable and great value: we have immensely enhanced our knowledge
and understanding of the world. Thus, that which threatens to annihilate
free will actually demonstrates its reality. Either modern science is broadly
correct, in which case free will exists, or it is not, in which case the threat
Human World in the Physical Universe, ch. 7. See also From Knowledge to Wisdom,
1st ed., pp. 174-181, 2nd ed., pp. 197-205; and “Methodological Problems of
Neuroscience”, op. cit.
94
The Human World in the Physical Universe, ch. 7.
95
The Human World in the Physical Universe, pp. 190-192. See, too, From
Knowledge to Wisdom, 1st ed., pp. 193-195, 2nd ed., pp. 216-218.
96
From Knowledge to Wisdom, ch. 10; The Human World in the Physical Universe,
ch. 2.
52
Nicholas Maxwell
to free will disappears.97
6. Connections Between the Two Problems
That there is a connection between the two problems is immediately
obvious. The problem “What kind of inquiry can best help life of value to
flourish in the physical universe?” hardly arises unless there is a solution
to the problem “How is life of value possible in the physical universe?”.
But this connection is even tighter than one might at first suppose. Aimoriented empiricism, it will be remembered, is the conception of science at
the core of wisdom-inquiry; it is the first step of the second argument in
support of wisdom-inquiry. But, according to aim-oriented empiricism,
physicalism is a basic tenet of (conjectural) scientific knowledge. It is
more secure, indeed, than any accepted physical theory, such as Newtonian
theory, quantum theory or general relativity. For theories which clash with
physicalism too severely are rejected, whatever their empirical success
might be; and even accepted theories are held to be false, whatever their
empirical success, because they clash with physicalism. (Science might,
one day, reject physicalism, but this would constitute a major revolution
comparable to the one that initiated modern science.)
Thus, the argument for wisdom-inquiry has the paradoxical consequence
that, in establishing physicalism as a rather secure item of scientific
knowledge, it calls into question the very possibility of there being life of
value in the world at all. Clearly, a solution to the HWPhU problem is
required if the argument for wisdom-inquiry is to have any coherence
whatsoever. The solution I propose to the HWPhU problem, just
indicated, makes viable the arguments I have sketched in support of
wisdom-inquiry.
A second connection has to do with the problem of simplicity or unity,
and the meaning of physicalism. A great success of aim-oriented
empiricism (integral to wisdom-inquiry) is that it solves a long-standing
problem in the philosophy of science which baffled even Einstein:98 what
does it mean to say of a theory that it is unified? My proposed solution
leads one to distinguish eight different kinds of unity, which in turn
97
From Knowledge to Wisdom, 1st ed., pp. 273-274, 2nd ed., pp. 294-295; see, too, The
Human World in the Physical Universe, ch. 6.
98
A. Einstein, “Autobiographical Remarks”, op. cit., pp. 21-23.
Life of Value
53
correspond to eight different versions of physicalism. A flood of light is
thrown on what physicalism can mean, and hence on what creates the
HWPhU problem in the first place.99
A third connection concerns personalistic explanation and “double
comprehensibility”. A basic feature of experiential physicalism (the
solution I propose to the HWPhU problem) is that it holds that sentient
beings are comprehensible in two very different ways: physically, and
personalistically. Granted knowledge-inquiry, however, personalistic
explanation hardly qualifies as an intellectually legitimate mode of
explanation in its own right. It amounts to little more than “folk
psychology”, to be replaced by something better when psychology
advances. Reject knowledge-inquiry, and accept wisdom-inquiry in its
place, and the situation is transformed: personalistic explanation becomes
intellectually uneliminatable, and certainly not reducible to scientific
explanation. Indeed, scientific explanations can only exist because
scientists can acquire implicit personalistic understanding of each other.
That wisdom-inquiry enormously enhances the intellectual status of
personalistic explanation, in this way, enormously strengthens experiential
physicalism, considered as a possible solution to the mind/brain problem,
and the more general HWPhU problem (as I remarked in point 24 above),
and enhances the force and plausibility of the proposed compatibilist
solution to the free will/physicalism problem, which depends on
personalistic explanation being an authentic mode of explanation in an
essential way.100
One feature of experiential physicalism is value realism. This may be
regarded as giving support to wisdom-inquiry, even though the latter does
not depend on value realism.
Finally, wisdom-inquiry and experiential physicalism combine in
strongly implying that aims are bound to be, at some point, profoundly
problematic, the task of improving aims also being profoundly
problematic. Granted physicalism, it is, in any case, little short of a
miracle that there exists anything capable of pursuing aims at all, let alone
sentient or conscious beings able to pursue aims of value. In considering,
at a fundamental level, the nature of the problems that confront us in
99
See my The Comprehensibility of the Universe, chs. 3 and 4; Is Science Neurotic?,
Appendix, section 2; From Knowledge to Wisdom (2007), ch. 14.
100
The Human World in the Physical Universe, ch. 6.
54
Nicholas Maxwell
seeking to realize what is of value in life, we need to take into account the
manner in which we, and all purposive things, have come to exist in the
physical universe. We need, in short, to consider the implications of
Darwinian theory, appropriately interpreted.
One immediate implication is that human learning is a development of
animal learning. Just as animal leaning is, fundamentally, learning how to
live (how to act in pursuit of survival and reproductive success), so too
human learning is, fundamentally, learning how to live, how to act. This
is, of course, central to wisdom-inquiry. One big difference is that,
whereas animals have a given basic aim set by evolution, we humans do
not. Our task is to transform the basic aim we have inherited from
evolution – survival and reproductive success – into the realization of what
is of value, which includes, but goes beyond, mere survival and
reproduction. At once a number of points deserve to be made.
First, nothing in evolution equips us to transform the basic aim of
survival and reproduction into the aim of realizing what is of value.
Evolution designs things capable of pursuing survival and reproduction in
an immense variety of ways, but leaves this basic aim fixed. This should
alert us, immediately, to the likelihood that we will find it very difficult
indeed to transform aims inherited from our evolutionary past into the aim
of realizing what is of value. The machinery of aim-oriented rationality,
designed specifically to help us do this, is likely to be urgently needed. As
it is, aim-oriented rationality has yet to enter public consciousness, despite
my thirty years’ campaign on its behalf. Our plight is dire indeed. We
have not yet appreciated just how fundamentally important and difficult it
is progressively to improve our aims in life, personal, social, and
institutional – and thus how vital to put in place intellectual/social
structures designed to help us do this.
Second, taking into account our evolutionary past and manner of
creation, it is all too likely that humanity will misconstrue and misrepresent
what its aims are, in an all-pervasive fashion. Darwinian theory is a
relatively recent discovery – when put into the context of human history
and pre-history. The idea that Darwinian theory is relevant to thought
about how we should live and tackle our problems of living is even more
recent. Until very recently, in short, a Darwinian understanding of what
our basic aims are in life has not been available to us. Aims have been
interpreted and understood in all sorts of other terms, religious, cultural,
social, personal. Misrepresentation of aims will have been endemic from
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the outset of the possibility of misrepresentation, with the beginnings of
culture. All this massively reinforces the first point: the machinery of aimoriented rationality is likely to be urgently needed to help us become more
honest about what our aims really are, as a first step towards discovering
how our aims can be improved.
Third, our psyches were designed to enable us to pursue survival and
reproduction successfully while living in hunting and gathering groups of
about 150 to 200 people. Change the conditions of life, and this same
psyche may produce actions thoroughly deranged from the standpoint of
survival and reproduction. But billions of people living in crowded cities
today do indeed live in a world very different from that of hunting and
gathering people. This in itself poses problems for the pursuit of survival
and reproduction, let alone what is of value in life.
Fourth, and closely connected with this last point, culture makes it
possible to interpret evolutionary aims in new, and sometimes newly
disastrous, ways. Survival and reproduction, for example, given culture,
may receive many diverse interpretations, many thoroughly deranged and
leading to deranged pursuits. Thus, given religion, survival may be
interpreted to be survival after death: the suicide terrorist may be driven, in
part, by the urge to survive. Once again, an evolutionary perspective
throws into sharp relief the fundamental importance of employing aimoriented rationality to help us develop our aims in worthwhile directions.
Fifth, humanity, perhaps uniquely among living things, is confronted by
the discovery of the inevitability of death. The pursuit of survival is, for
each one of us, ultimately doomed. Much of our culture has sought to
deny this grim truth. Given that the urge to survive is such a fundamental
part of our makeup, the temptations to deny death, in all sorts of ways, will
be immense. Once again we see just how important aim-oriented
rationality must be. Death ensures that our life aims become, at some
point, horribly problematic. We need aim-oriented rationality to help us
solve these death-generated problems concerning our aims, insofar as they
can be solved, and to help us avoid the temptations of denial and delusion.
Finally, humanity, again uniquely, seeks to plan consciously its way of
life, a task for which consciousness was not designed by evolution.
Consciousness in mammals, it is reasonable to hold, has the task of
deciding, from moment to moment, or at intervals of minutes at the most,
what is to be done. It does not plan the way of life. But human beings, as
a result of the development of imagination, personalistic understanding and
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Nicholas Maxwell
culture, can consciously act in a vastly expanded arena, taking in thousands
of miles and decades into the future. This will, almost inevitably, lead to a
clash between the system of hormones and so on which once controlled
our way of life, and our conscious minds. Furthermore, consciousness will
not have been equipped by evolution to take on the task of planning the
way of life. Once again, aim-oriented rationality will be needed to help
resolve conflicts that arise as a result of our evolutionary past.
In short, put human life into the context of experiential physicalism, and
Darwinism appropriately interpreted, and it becomes abundantly clear that
aim-oriented rationality and wisdom-inquiry need to be built, urgently, into
our culture, into our human world. A human world which has had the
good sense to take wisdom-inquiry seriously would have the capacity to
improve aims as a part of life, and would thus be able to make progress
towards a better world. A world without wisdom-inquiry will continue to
blunder, I fear, from disaster to disaster, the disasters becoming more
serious as our powers to cause havoc become greater and more widely
distributed.